


Perfect Little Freaks: Act 6.1

by AOrange



Series: Perfect Little Freaks [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Comedy, F/F, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pesterlog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AOrange/pseuds/AOrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your family is spread out across the country and includes all your friends, you have to make the most of the time you spend together.</p><p>It's not just the Strider-Lalonde clan anymore. The family is extending in all kinds of ways, and friends are always welcome. </p><p>Family events are definitely more fun that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [A6.1A1]: hey, idiot!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's the first six or so weeks of summer vacation.

**May, 2015**

He'd known for a long time that, on some level, he still hated himself. He hated every decision he made, every option he chose, every single thing he said. It was something that he'd mostly grown out of when he was sixteen, but once in awhile, the sensations all came rushing back and he still didn't know how to ignore them. 

Getting on a plane to Toronto with the intention of staying for over month was the stupidest fucking thing he'd ever done. 

He thought about getting a bus immediately back over the border. He could do that, there was nothing stopping him. If he just stood around scowling for long enough, a security guard was bound to take him in for questioning. Who could tell how that would end?

He fought his way through the crowd of idiots who had decided that standing right in front of baggage claim was a great idea. When his bag started circling, he elbowed someone out of the way and lugged his suitcase off the conveyor belt, moving as fast as it seemed safe to walk down the hallway towards the exit. 

Blue Volkswagen Golf. That was what he was supposed to look for; but even once he was clear out of the crowded arrivals hall, some part of him still kind of hoped that he'd be hit by a taxi before the car arrived. 

They were late. He'd told them the right time, he'd checked it twice and made them read it back to him, just to make sure. Fuelled by inevitable panic and his habit of making stupid, rash decisions, he stormed back into the building and ordered a large black coffee to try and settle his wildly out of control nerves. 

He could almost feel his blood pressure rising when he realised that he didn't have any Canadian coins and had to use his debit card instead. 

"Hey, Vantas!" 

Karkat's head snapped up when he heard his name being shouted by a familiar voice. He'd been waiting for long enough that his coffee cup was almost empty. 

Latula was hanging out of the passenger's side window of a blue Volkswagen, parked a few yards to his left. 

He was such a fucking idiot. 

"So where's mine, huh?" 

"What?" 

"Look, you don't just get Timmies for yourself and fuck everyone else," Latula explained as Karkat unceremoniously threw his suitcase and backpack into the trunk. "She's at home," she added, noticing the strange look on his face. "Bad day." 

"Bad days all around," he muttered, climbing into the car once Latula sat herself back behind the wheel. 

"Oh my God, you kids are so dramatic all the time," she said. "Ready?"

"No."

"Rad."

Karkat almost choked on his coffee dregs as she pulled the car out in front of three cars, four taxis, and a bus. 

"So, if it's cool with you I wanna skip the whole _how was your flight_ b.s. and get straight to the nitty gritty," Latula said, breaking the silence in the car. 

"Skip whatever you want," Karkat replied. His stomach had started to settle as soon as he was in the car, because it meant that he hadn't completely fucked up. He'd given Latula the right time, the right date, and she'd actually arrived to pick him up. 

He was still filled with regret over every life decision he'd made, but at least he didn't feel like he was going to vomit up his coffee any time soon. 

"Okay, so," she started, turning to face him while they were stopped at a red light. "Mom can be kind of, well, terrifying if you're not expecting it. I mean, she's not like a bad mom or anything, but she's got this weird knack for knowing what you're gonna do at least three days before you do it. She's just, like, intense, you know? She's cool though, just don't lie to her face or anything and you'll be okay."

"She knows why I'm here, right?"

"Oh, yeah, we broke that news to her before we even came down to visit you during Spring Break. She would have figured it out anyway, she always does," Latula said. "It's just all mind games all the time at our house. She says it builds character."

"Great," he muttered, moving to rest his elbow up by the half-opened window. "So she's okay with me staying at your place?"

"You're on a trial run," Latula admitted, taking off as soon as the light turned green. "We talked her out of forcing you to sign a contract." 

"What the fuck?"

"Okay, I made that up, but she did say that if you fuck up you're out."

"How is that any better?" Karkat asked, fighting the urge to yell.

"Easy, just don't fuck up. You need to make any stops? Because we're about five minutes away," she said, glancing over at him. 

"No."

The Pyropes lived in a red brick house in suburban Toronto. The last few minutes of the drive took them through tree-lined streets and houses with large front lawns. Karkat had never really seen houses like that outside of movies. He'd spent his whole life in the city and only left it for family holidays. He'd been to Dave's house in upstate New York, but that didn't exactly count as the suburbs; the Lalonde family home was in the middle of the woods and had a front river in place of a lawn. With everything else that had happened over the years, he'd never really stopped to think about what the house would be like from the outside. 

Latula turned the car into the drive and came to a sudden stop in the garage. She put the vehicle into park and grinned. 

"Home sweet home, dude," she said. "Grab your shit and haul ass into the house. I wasn't joking before either, I don't joke about the baby sister. She's having a shitty day so here's hoping you can turn that around," Latula went on. She slammed her fist into the garage door button, making an explosion sound as she did. "So are you coming or what?"

"Uh, yeah," Karkat said, finally unbuckling his seatbelt. He popped the trunk to collect his bags and followed Latula through the laundry and out into the kitchen, wheeling his suitcase behind him.

He was sure his heart was about to beat its way out of his chest, right through his ribcage. 

"Okay, so kitchen's here, living room is over there, there's some other shit down here like the laundry but you saw that already. Bedrooms are upstairs, you're allowed to stay in with Rezi unless she tells you to fuck off, and if she does, you do, capice?" Latula explained, walking him through part of the downstairs. 

"Yeah."

"And if you move anything, put it back exactly where you found it. Makes shit easier for everyone, you know? Like, exactly where you found it, not five centimeters to the left. _Exactly_." 

"Uh-huh."

"Awesome. Her room's the first one on the left, you might as well go say hi."

"Should I, uh?" Karkat trailed off, gesturing vaguely to his suitcase. 

"Yeah, ask her where she wants you to put it," Latula said, swinging the fridge door open. "So it's three now, Mom'll be home at six, and it's Friday so we're probably having takeout. The debate starts ten minutes after Mom takes her shoes off."

"Debate?"

"Yeah, there's three of us, you think we all want the same takeout on the same Friday night?" 

"Okay, I'm just gonna, you know, go up now," he said, lifting his suitcase so avoid dragging the wheels up the stairs. He started climbing and paused on the landing to look around; closed doors that he guessed were bedrooms, an open door that lead into the bathroom, and a small living space that looked out onto the front yard. There was only one door to his left so he stepped slowly forward, hitching his backpack strap up before it could fall off his shoulder.

He took a deep breath, and knocked.

Karkat opened the door to Terezi's bedroom slowly. There was more colour than he'd been expecting. Of course, he'd seen her room in the background of Skype calls over the years but her laptop camera didn't really do justice to just how bright the space was. She had some kind of kaleidoscopic filter over one of her windows, so that the afternoon sun filtered through into the room in a bright explosion of colour. 

Her desk was piled high with her college textbooks, regular tomes with post-it notes stuck to their covers, memos that had most likely been left there by Latula for later reference. 

Terezi was staring in his direction. She had shuffled all the way up to the top of her bed and was lying on her back, her legs up on the wall. 

He didn't know if she'd heard him come in or not; she had earphones plugged into both of her ears, and an iPod in a bright red case lying on her stomach. 

His backpack slipped of his shoulder before he could catch it, landing on the carpeted floor with a dull thud.

Terezi jumped. 

She lifted her right arm up from around the neck of a stuffed dragon and unhooked one of the buds from her ear. 

"How long are you just going to stand there like an idiot?"

"Another three minutes."

"Suit yourself."

He watched as she picked up the iPod - an old classic model, with the click wheel - and switched off the device before removing the second bud from her other ear. She pushed back from the wall with her feet and sat up, swinging her legs around so she was sitting on the edge of her bed. 

She wasn't wearing her glasses. He could see her struggling to find exactly where he was standing; her head cocked closer to the right direction when he took a step forward - the movement helped. 

He wanted to play it safe. 

The problem was, he'd played it safe back in March and the routine was starting to wear thin. 

With every step he took closer to where she was sitting, Terezi managed to more accurately pinpoint where he was in the room, her eyes most likely following the shifting patterns of light than anything else.

When he stopped moving, it was with his knees pressing up against hers. She finally let go of the iPod she had been clutching, and with both hands reached up to pull him down into a kiss.

+++

"Hey, wake up you lazy shit. Time for work." 

Dave just groaned into his phone until Dirk disconnected the call for him. He'd answered without looking at the screen on the off chance the call was important, and he felt cheated. It couldn't have been any later than seven in the morning and he had no idea why he was being called into work. 

He didn't even have a job. 

He rolled over and stretched out, listening to his back and elbows pop into place. There were glasses on his face before he even fell out of bed, but they wouldn't be enough for the day. 

He scrounged around in his open suitcase for something to wear, eventually settling on a pair of cuff-hemmed shorts and a _Blondie_ t-shirt he'd found in the box of his dad's old clothes. His sneakers were still downstairs so he just picked up a pair of socks, plucked a small plastic case from one of his suitcase pockets, and grabbed his phone before heading down from the attic. 

"Nice shirt," Dirk said. "You want the bacon with the pancakes or separately?"

"Don't care," he muttered, dropping down into one of the kitchen chairs. "Coffee?"

"Two minutes."

Dave groaned again, folding his arms on the table so he could put his head down again. He did, closing his eyes behind his shades for good measure. It was too early, too bright, and Dirk was far too enthusiastic for whatever time it was. He waited another minute before asking, just lying at the table surrounded by the smell of popping bacon. 

"Time?"

"Six forty-three."

Another groan. 

"Why am I awake so early?"

"You're going to work."

"Yeah, I heard. Except I don't have a job and I don't live here," Dave mumbled. He lifted his head a little when he heard the coffee finally being poured over on the counter. 

"Okay, but, you've been here for four days already and we decided we didn't really want you freeloading for the next six weeks, so we got you a job," Dirk explained. He put a large mug of coffee down in front of Dave, just out of reach, so he'd have to work for it. 

"What the fuck, Bro?"

"You'll love it."

"That's probably the biggest lie anyone ever told, and I'm including the time you told me you were my uncle," Dave said, leaning forward to snatch the mug. 

"Low blow, dude. But seriously, you'll love it. At least, you won't want to throw yourself under a bus at the end of the day. Hopefully," Dirk said. 

Dave watched wearily as he sat down, finally having dished out plates of breakfast across the table. 

"Liar," he said, sitting up just enough to start drinking from his mug. 

Of course the coffee was good. It was probably some bullshit California Wholefoods special blend hand picked so you could taste the fucking sun.

"I'll bet you ten bucks. Hey, Jake, food's up!" 

"Hold onto your horses!" Jake shouted back from the bathroom. "I'd rather not slice half my face off first thing on a Monday morning, if you don't mind!" 

"Jake's coming," Dirk said helpfully, as he picked up his own cutlery. "You've got contacts now?" 

"Huh?" 

"What's with the contacts?" 

Dave put his mug down and followed where Dirk was pointing, his eyes landing on the small plastic case he'd brought downstairs with him earlier. 

"They're just coloured," Dave said, reaching over his own breakfast to pick up a slice of bacon with his fingers. "They don't do shit except make me look normal." 

"How long's that been a thing?"

"A couple of months?"

"Why?"

"Because I had to keep taking my glasses of in one of my colour classes and everyone lost their shit," he explained. "Like, mega lost their shit." 

"So?" Dirk asked, picking up the container.

"So I had like a week of everyone being like _holy shit have you seen that fucked up shit that is the most fucked up shit I ever saw with my own eyes_ and I didn't want to listen to it anymore," Dave said. "Put this shit in and bam, suddenly like the masses."

"Aw, that's cute, buddy. You picked out my eye colour." 

"Shut up, it's kind of mine."

"Yeah, in like one tiny spot maybe."

"Still counts when that's all the color I've got." 

"Alright, alright. Eat your pancakes," Dirk said. 

Dave made a big show of cutting into his pancakes so he could shove more than he probably should have into his mouth at once. 

"So," he said, speaking through so much of his breakfast that it was pointless of him to say anything at all. "What're you doing?"

"Try swallowing first," Dirk said. 

"Gross," Dave quipped, once he finished chewing the half a pancake he'd crammed into his mouth. "If I'm being sent to work in the coal mines, what are you doing all day?"

"Same shit I do every day. You've basically eaten everything we had in the kitchen so I need to go on a grocery run, I've got emails to deal with and videos to edit. Throw in a few hours of writing and assorted other bullshit and you'll be home again."

"Unless I get killed because no one trusted me with the fucking canary, which was probably a good choice on their part, because who'd fucking trust me with the potentially life saving bird? I mean, that's probably where I'd be like, actually useful or some shit, right? I can look after the bird and talk to it and keep it happy and then when it drops dead from gas exposure I could run the fuck out of there and warn everyone on my way back to the surface," Dave said. "I could do that, right?"

"Back in eighteen eighty-nine, sure, maybe you could've done that," Dirk scoffed. 

"Don't be daft," Jake said, sitting down at the place set beside Dave. "He wouldn't fit down a coal mine, he's too big." 

"Yeah, because _that's_ the only flaw in his plan," Dirk said. "When're you leaving?"

"About quarter past," Jake said. He picked up the mug of tea Dirk had made for him, which had apparently cooled enough to drink while he'd been in the bathroom. "You all ready then, Davey-boy?"

"I'm going with Pops?"

"Of course you are, you nincompoop. Where else do you think we'd be able to find somewhere to keep you occupied a few days a week?"

"Huh, could be worse," Dave shrugged. "So is there a drug store between here and there?"

"Not exactly on the way but there's a CVS a few blocks in the other direction, why?" Jake asked. 

"I need to pick up my script," Dave said. 

"Have you got enough to get through today if you need 'em?" Dirk said, interrupting before Jake could reply. 

"Probably, I've got two left."

"Leave it here. I'll pick it up," he said. 

Dave thought about questioning him, but Dirk's last statement hadn't been a request. He could have tried fighting him on it, but there was enough caffeine in his system that he was starting to wake up properly and knew, on some level, that even trying would end badly. 

The more easily he agreed to give up his script, the less questions he'd have to answer in the long run. 

"I'll get it once I eat." 

"And brush your teeth."

"And brush my teeth. And take a piss, and put my contacts in, and maybe take a dump but I haven't decided on that yet so it could go either way," Dave said. "Just, make sure they don't rip you off, and you gotta get the brand name." 

"Why?"

"Because they stamp them differently and they're easier to read than the generics."

"That sounds like bullshit."

"Probably. I just like 'em." 

"Alright, you ready then?" Jake asked suddenly. 

"What?" Dave said, turning to look over at how much of Jake's breakfast was left; it was completely gone. "Did you seriously just somehow eat that?"

"It's morning, I was hungry," Jake shrugged, swivelling around on his chair. "You've got ten minutes."

"Do I need to bring anything?"

"Yourself, lunch money, and patience." 

"Why do I need patience?"

"All in good time, mate," Jake said, pushing his chair out from the table. "You're down to nine minutes."

"Hey, wait," Dave said before either of the adults could leave the table. "So which one of you do I have to bug for my lunch money and can I have a twenty?"

+++

When they'd told him that he'd be going to work, Dave hadn't known what to expect. He figured that he wouldn't be doing anything important and he'd known they wouldn't let him anywhere near the animals, so he'd guessed that he'd just be sitting around doing paperwork. 

Beyond that, he had absolutely no clue what they could even legally let him do. 

When he arrived at the location Jake had marked out on the zoo map for him back in his office, Dave realised why they hadn't told him - there was no way he would have agreed to the job if he'd known in advance just what it entailed. 

He hadn't flown across the entire country to spend three days a week as a camp councillor. 

The staff put him to work helping out with one of the art classes. He'd never been great at drawing anything too realistic, but he could manage cartoon animals; it was no different than half of his commission jobs. He lead a small table filled with elementary school kids though different ways to colour in their artwork, all while drawing each of them whatever zoo animals they wanted riding bikes or skateboards. 

In the end, the worst part was sitting on a far too small chair all day. 

"Uh, yeah, a chicken sandwich and a soda," Dave said. "Coke, I guess. Thanks." 

He handed over the ten dollar bill that Dirk had given him before leaving the house earlier that morning and waited for his change. He shoved the few coins into his pocket and stepped aside to wait for his order, taking out his phone to kill the time. He didn't have any important notifications, at least, nothing that couldn't wait until he sat down, so he just sent off a few Snapchats and put his cell away.

It didn't take them long to make his sandwich, so he knew it probably wasn't going to be all that great. He took his soda from the drinks fridge and started off back to the front of the zoo where he could at least sit inside and eat his lunch. 

It was already after three thirty in the afternoon, so the crowds were beginning to thin out a little as he made his way back to the offices. 

Jake was nowhere to be seen, but the interns had told him earlier in the day that him being missing was the rule rather than the exception; if you wanted to find Dr. English, you had to call Dr. English, and even then you had to hope he was feeling generous enough to answer his phone. 

Dave sat down at one of the tables in the small lounge area and started to eat. 

He had a lot of messages to catch up on. There were some from people that he wanted to actually read, a lot of spam emails, and at least three hundred new entries into the monthly commission pool for June; he still hadn't finished all the May commissions, but there was still just a week and a half left to get them done. 

He pushed his glasses up onto his head, because with the window shades drawn most of the way down, the room was relatively comfortable. He replied to a few messages from John while he ate, alternating back and forth between their Pesterchum window and his Instagram feed. 

"So, heard the latest?"

"No, what now?"

"You know, about English?"

Dave kept his eyes down as the two women walked into the kitchen from the hallway. He didn't get a good look at them, but they might have been from the reception area downstairs, he wasn't sure. 

"What's he done _this_ time? Let one of the big cats loose?"

The both laughed. 

"He's a disaster alright, but something like that's beyond even his usual level of practical incompetence. No, I was talking about the big thing, apparently he's _engaged_ now."

"No! To who?"

"The same guy he's been with forever, you know, the rapper?"

" _Ex_ rapper."

"Same difference. How'd you find out?"

"I heard him telling that intern, you know, the grad student?"

Dave choked on a bite of his sandwich; that wasn't the kind of office gossip he'd been expecting. 

"You okay there, sweetie?"

"Yeah," he coughed, clearing his throat with a large swig of soda. "A bit of chicken just went down the wrong way." 

"Alright, you just let us know if you need anything," one of the women said. "We'll be downstairs if you need us."

They both walked out with their coffees a few minutes later, leaving Dave on his own again. 

Half an hour later, he was still waiting impatiently. He bobbed his leg up and down to help work off some of his excess energy, trying to prevent his own body from producing any more excess adrenaline than it already had pumping through his system. 

Eventually, twelve laps of the office and three trips to the bathroom later, Dave jumped to his feet when Jake appeared at the top of the stairs. 

"Alright, mate?"

"Yeah. Where've you been?"

"Oh, here and there," Jake said with a wave of his hand. He had mud smeared up his right calf and some dried blood across his scraped up knuckles. "It's just beeb one of those days, you know? I got caught up with some presentations and then got roped into helping out with a few rogue penguins, and the next thing you know I haven't had a chance to sit down and read any of these papers I'm supposed to be editing this month," he went on, gesturing for Dave to follow him into his office. "So, how was your first day at work?"

"Great, I got to draw panthers without them being someone's fucked up fursona for a change," Dave said, dropping into one of the chairs in front of Jake's desk. "Oh, hey, so when's the wedding?"

"Well, we were thinking December so then we only have to remember one anniversa - oh, fuck it," Jake said, cutting himself off mid-sentence.

He sighed and took off his glasses in order to clean the lenses. 

" _Fuck it_ sounds about right, Pops," Dave snorted. He picked up a random skull that was lying on the desk and turned it over to examine it more closely - he had no idea what animal it had belonged to, and knowing Jake, it could have been anything.

"We forgot to tell you, didn't we?"

"Yeah. Which is totally hilarious, don't get me wrong. Like, that's pretty much what I guess I was expecting? I mean, like, in general, you know? I've always figured that eventually you'd be like, hey, surprise, we've been secretly married since two thousand and nine or something," he went on. "Can I be the flower girl?"

"I highly doubt we'll have a need for one of those, but if we do I'm sure you'd be first choice," Jake said. "Put that down, would you? It's at least twenty thousand years old." 

"What the hell, why is it just lying around where any asshole can pick it up?" Dave asked, alarmed as he returned the skull to its place. 

"Because I don't often have arseholes in my office."

"Wow, rude. So how did that happen?"

"How did I decide not to have arseholes in my office?"

"Well, that I guess, but mostly I mean the whole getting hitched thing," Dave said. 

"Accidentally, I suppose," Jake started. 

"Okay, I should have seen that coming."

"Not that it was completely accidental, I just mean that what I was trying to say didn't _quite_ come out the way I intended it to, and the point I was trying to make got a little out of hand," he went on. 

"You mean you fucked up saying something so bad it came out as a marriage proposal?" Dave asked with a snort of laughter. 

"Essentially. I was just trying to point out how much easier it would be to fill in government paperwork."

"You only just realised you need a greencard, huh?"

"Oh, shush. I've been a legal permanent resident since before you were out of diapers," Jake said.

"Jokes on you, Pops, I was in 'em until I was four." 

"If I recall, you graduated kindergarten and overnight pullups on the same day."

"Oh, come on, it was a figure of speech and you made it weird," Dave groaned, leaning forward to slump down on top of Jake's in-tray. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"It wasn't a deliberate decision. I suppose we just kind of got on with things and forgot to mention it," Jake shrugged. 

Dave watched as he finally sat down at his desk. He waited until Jake was looking at him to arch his left eyebrow, and when that earned him no response, he reached up to pull his glasses down to the tip of his nose so the expression was more obvious. 

"You forgot," he said. 

"Oh, don't look at me like that. You know perfectly well I'd forget to mention if I was on fire," Jake said with a frown. "Any further questions before I change the subject?"

"Yeah," Dave said. He sat up properly and leant back in his chair, putting his feet up on the edge of the desk. "Are you actually having some kind of event or are you just gonna go the courthouse autograph route?"

"Ask your father," Jake said, raising his own eyebrows in a joking manner. 

"Okay. Hey Pops, are you actually having some kind of event or are you just gonna go the courthouse autograph route?"

"That's not what I meant!"

Dave burst out laughing so hard that he started toppling out of his chair, his quick reflexes the only thing that stopped him from landing on the carpet in a heap.

+++

Watching Terezi move through her own house was something that Karkat didn't think six weeks was enough time to understand. She walked confidently, alone, because she was comfortable in her surroundings. He watched her run up and down the stairs, fish through the refrigerator to find enough leftovers to constitute lunch, and even head out into the yard to collect the post. 

He'd spent almost a week just watching, learning how she managed to get through each day in her own home. She'd scowled at him for offering to help her with the washing up on his second night in Toronto, so he'd just been hanging back in the days since then. 

When he heard her calling out from down the hall, he hesitated to reply. She wasn't calling for anyone in particular, but he figured that Latula would jump in and help out.

Then, he remembered she was out for the night with friends and suppressed the urge to panic. 

He stood up from Terezi's desk, where his laptop had found a place in amongst all her books and plushies, and walked across the landing to knock on the bathroom door. 

"Uh, you okay?" 

"Mom said that my conditioner comes in a new bottle now and I don't know which one it is," Terezi called out over the running shower. "It's under the sink."

"You need it now?" Karkat asked, vaguely alarmed. 

"Yeah, or I can't finish washing my hair, dummy!" 

"Right now?"

"Yes right now! It should be some kind of blue and say coconut something something on it," Terezi explained. "I'd say don't look but we both know you won't anyway, and even if you did how the hell would I even know?"

"I, uh, one sec," Karkat stammered, opening the bathroom door slowly. He walked into the room, his back facing the shower, and opened the cabinet door.

"See? It's fine. Under the sink, blue, coconut," she repeated. "Jeez, I could have just smelled it out by now." 

"So why didn't you?" 

"Because I'm already in the shower and if I drip water all over the floor, it's kind of a huge safety hazard. You know, since I'm blind and everything. In case I slip. Karkat?" Terezi said. "Did you find it yet?"

"I think so," Karkat said, standing up from where he'd been crouched. He heard the shower door opening, and then Terezi's damp hand hit him in the shoulder. "Here," he said, turning around just enough to make sure she had a proper hold on the conditioner. 

"Thanks! You can go back to talking to your boyfriend now," she said, her laughter echoing off the tiled walls as Karkat hurried out of the bathroom. 

He dropped back into her desk chair and clicked back over to Pesterchum.

TG: dude  
TG: dude whered you go  
TG: we have shenanigans to discuss  
TG: woe is me forever alone  
TG: oh my god she killed you   
CG: NO, I JUST HAD TO GET SOMETHING FOR HER.  
CG: AND CAN'T YOU GO UNSUPERVISED FOR THREE FUCKING MINUTES?   
TG: we both know the answer is no  
TG: and isnt she in the shower   
CG: YES.   
TG: …   
CG: DON'T FUCKING SAY IT.   
TG: i wasnt gonna say shit   
CG: GOOD.   
TG: gotta go   
TG: pops is teaching me how to shoot   
CG: I HOPE YOU ACCIDENTALLY SHOOT YOUR DICK OFF.   
TG: lmao  
TG: later   
turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum!

Karkat jumped when Terezi leant over his shoulder and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. 

"Fuck!"

"You should have been listening properly and then I wouldn't have been able to scare you!" 

"I was listening," he muttered, pressing pause on the YouTube video he'd been watching while Terezi finished up in the bathroom. "I just wasn't expecting that."

Terezi cackled loudly as she turned to sit down sideways on his lap. 

"What're we watching?"

"Some fucking idiot talk about why _Pitch Perfect Two_ sucked," he said, unpausing again.

"Is the answer because it's a sequel?"

"That's only his first reason."

"How many reasons are there?"

"Fifteen."

"How many reasons did you have?"

"Twenty three."

"That's _beautiful_ ," she said, kissing his other cheek before she stood up again. "Is my lamp on?"

"Yeah. And the ceiling light." 

"Can you turn the ceiling one off when you're finished watching your dumb video?"

"Yeah," he agreed, turning to look over his shoulder as Terezi climbed up into her bed. "I didn't move your iPod," he added.

"Good, or you'd have to sleep outside!"

He watched as she arranged her pillow to sit up against the head of her bed, giving her something soft to lean back against when she sat down under the covers. She picked up the iPod from her bedside table and plugged in the left earphone, reaching out again to check that she'd put her glasses down in the right place. 

Terezi closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the wall as her audiobook started to play. 

Karkat finally tore his eyes away and tried to focus his attention back on the video, but he didn't really care anymore. He couldn't just cut the video short so he let it keep playing in the background while he switched between tabs and windows. He replied to a few Pesterchum messages in the meantime, closing out of everything else while he waited for the video to play through its final eight minutes. 

He felt a flash of self-loathing for picking what felt like the longest video available in the movie review category, but the feeling subsided almost as soon as the vlogger stopped talking. 

He forcefully shut the lid of his laptop and stood up, taking the time to make sure he pushed the desk chair in all the way. He took his socks off and threw them into his open suitcase, which had been carefully placed as out of the way as possible, before crossing the room again to shut the door and turn off the ceiling light. 

Terezi turned her head and opened her eyes when she heard him come to a stop by the right side of her bed. 

"It's been like a week," she said. "Make up your mind." 

"It's cold, right?" 

"It's about ten degrees." 

"That's like what, fifty in American?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Okay, but you've got like three blankets, so it'd be weird to sleep with my t-shirt on, right?"

"You're weird no matter what you wear to sleep in," Terezi clarified. "This is probably the part that's making it weird," she went on. "Like, you're doing that thing where you start to verbalise the arguments you're having with past and future Karkat, and I have to sit here wondering which idiot will win today." 

He groaned at his own indecision but climbed into bed anyway, without making the choice. 

It took another two minutes of her staring blankly at him, while he just sat there, before he peeled off his shirt and threw it onto the foot of the bed. 

"Don't say it," he said, sliding down under the covers to settle in for the night. 

"What, that I can totally see your gross man nipples now?"

"Pretty much that."

"Well luckily for you, I can't see them but I bet they're gross anyway!"

"Good," he said, turning onto his back. "What are you listening to?"

" _A Dance With Dragons_ ," she said. "But I can stop."

"Nah, you're probably near the end by now," he said, trying to mould his pillow into a more comfortable shape. 

"I've still got twenty five hours to go," Terezi replied. 

"Fuck."

"Yeah, it's kinda long." 

"That's a fucking understatement," Karkat said, watching her again while she pressed pause on the story and wound her earphones around the device. 

Terezi reached over to put her iPod down and switch off her lamp, before shuffling down to lie so that she was facing Karkat. 

It was dark enough despite the street lights that he couldn't quite tell if she was looking at him or just facing the right direction, until she reached out to pat his cheek. 

"I was talking to Vriska before, like earlier today, and I told her I was willing to bet her five hundred American dollars that neither me or Tula have that she'll get into John's pants before I get into yours," Terezi said. 

Karkat coughed loudly, trying to stop himself from choking. 

"That's, uh, that's probably bullshit," he said eventually. "We all know what John's like."

"That was kinda the point," she said.

"Okay, fine. Friday." 

"This Friday?"

"Uh. Yeah." 

"That's two days away."

"I know."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because literally everything could go wrong between now and then, and especially then," Karkat said, struggling to keep his voice down. 

"It'll be fine," she said, rolling her eyes even though he couldn't see the act. 

"It'll be a fucking disaster." 

"Literally," Terezi sniggered. "But if we expect it to be a disaster and no one dies it'll be a success!"

"This whole conversation is a disaster," he muttered, letting her move his right arm so it was hanging over her in a loose hug. 

"Yeah, but you're a huge disaster all of the time anyway," she pointed out. "Less talking, more making out," she said, grinning when she realised he was already fiddling with her hair. 

"You just want to rub it all in Vriska's face, don't you?"

"Maybe," Terezi said. 

When he moved first to initiate the kiss, she just laughed and followed his lead.

+++

She knew it was morning when she woke up, but she had no idea of the time. It was only just light outside as she carefully lifted the arm up from across her bare torso and slipped silently out of bed. 

Kanaya didn't stir. 

Rose dressed herself in the pyjamas that had been discarded on her bedroom floor the night before and padded silently across the carpet. The door creaked as she opened it, doing the same when she closed it behind her again. 

She walked down the hall, past Dave's empty room, and into the bathroom. She washed her face, wiping away the smeared residue of the lipstick she had forgotten to remove before going to bed. 

Then, when she noticed obvious lipstick stains that were definitely not her own, she changed her mind and stripped back down to shower. 

When she decided that she was about as presentable as she was going to get despite wearing everything she'd had on the previous afternoon, she ran her towel over her hair one last time before dropping it on the floor. 

Rose backtracked quietly down the hallway, because she knew it was still far too early to be awake, heading for the stairs. 

Suddenly, she stopped. 

Roxy's bedroom door was open. 

She picked up the pace a little, hurrying downstairs to find house empty. On a whim, she took the stairs down again, into the basement; the lights were on. 

She walked across the den, more slowly this time as the sudden, inexplicable panic subsided. 

"Mom?"

"Rosie? Why are you awake? It's barely six in the morning." 

Roxy turned in her chair as Rose entered her study. 

"I couldn't sleep," Rose said, curling up on the old, soft armchair in the corner of the room. "What about you?"

"I had a ten o'clock conference call," Roxy said. 

"You just said it's only almost six."

"Oh, it was four o'clock here. My meetings still all run on Geneva time."

"Of course they do." 

"You okay, hun?"

"A little tired," Rose lied, hoping that her mother wouldn't question her any further. She was definitely tired, but there was more to the story than that and she didn't feel like sharing.

"I've got a little bit to finish up here then I'll do something for breakfast. I'll make us all some pancakes if you like," Roxy said.

"It's alright."

"We've got the shake 'n bake kind."

"Oh thank God," Rose said. "Can I stay here while you work?"

"Of course you can, sweetie. Are you sure you're okay?" Roxy asked, her face full of concern. 

"Yeah. I just missed you," Rose said, with a small smile. "Quite a lot, to tell the truth." 

Roxy blew her a kiss, and turned her chair back around to face her computer. 

It was a strange thing to be home again, Rose thought, despite having been back for weeks. Nothing had really changed since the previous summer; her mother hadn't even had the heart to go around and make anyone's beds. Her study was exactly the same at it had been throughout Rose's entire childhood. It was still decorated with _Lord of the Rings_ posters, _Harry Potter_ figurines, and far too many photos of their entire family. 

Both Rose and Dave had spent so much time doing their homework downstairs in Roxy's office over the years, asking her questions that she would rapidly answer without looking up from checking her own formulas. She had comforted bad days at school, supervised sick days and snow days, all from the little basement room where she worked.

Rose felt almost sick to her stomach when she thought about just how many secrets she was keeping from her mother.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"I just," she said, pausing long enough for Roxy to turn around. 

"Rosie, sweetie, what's wrong?"

There it was, the concern. She clammed up, unable to bring herself to finish her intended train of thought.

"Nothing," she said, taking a moment to clear her throat. "Are we still going into town today?"

"At a more reasonable time than now, of course we can."

"I was thinking about having my hair cut," Rose said. "After we do the necessary shopping, of course."

"We can find time for that," Roxy said. "Come on, let's go get those pancakes started," she added, quickly saving her work and standing up from behind her desk. "You sure you're okay?"

"Of course," Rose said, sliding out of the armchair to go on ahead of her mother. "I'd tell you if there was anything you could help with." 

"Do you need some help getting moisturiser on those claw marks?" Roxy exclaimed suddenly. 

"What?"

"You might want to tell Kanaya to tone it down some, hun. You think your hairdresser isn't going to comment? Jesus, she did a good job."

"Mother!"

Rose spent the following half hour in silence, only glaring in response to her mother's shining laughter as she wandered around the kitchen trying her best to make pancakes. The loud music playing through the TV didn't help and when Kanaya came down into the kitchen, Roxy just burst out laughing; she made up for it by kissing each of them on the head and offering them the first of her mangled pancakes. 

Life back upstate was slower than in the cities. There was no rush to get dressed, or to shower, or even any reason to keep to a schedule. Everyone went at their own pace, and it was almost ten thirty in the morning before they were ready to leave for Potsdam; Kanaya was the last to be ready, touching up her lipstick three times before she was satisfied. 

Roxy had a list of things they needed from Walmart. She needed a new set of sheets for Dirk's bed, so that John could have a room of his own when he arrived in two week's time. She needed a good bathroom cleaner, because she couldn't remember the last time anyone had cleaned out that ensuite - she didn't want John going in there without giving it a complete scrub down first. It was probably a good idea to get him a set of cutlery and a sponge to clean it with to avoid cross contamination in his food, so they threw those into the cart as well. 

"Is it okay with you?" Roxy asked, when the girls were helping her haul the shopping out of the cart and into the van.

"Is what okay?" Rose questioned. She threw the sheets into the back door and let them slide across the floor, despite knowing that she'd be the one sent to find them later on. 

"That they're coming over?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I've never had a man in the house before," Roxy said. "Kanaya, be wonderful and return the cart, would you? Thanks."

"It's okay, Mom," Rose said. She climbed into the back seat as Roxy got into the front and started the car; Kanaya hopped up into the back and slid the van door closed behind her. 

"Really?"

"Yes. I find it somewhat difficult to believe that you've never had them over before. We could have saved quite a bit of anguish on the boy's parts if they'd known their parents were dating earlier," Rose said. "It won't be a complete shock to the system, we did have my dear uncle around while I was growing up."

"Oh, you know what I mean." 

"Mr. Egbert is perfectly lovely, Mom," Rose said. "And John is a delight."

"You sound sarcastic, honey," Roxy said, glancing into the backseat through the rearview mirror. 

"It's hard not to, I'll admit. I'm not being facetious in the slightest. I like them both. John is a lovely younger brother and his father is possibly the best outcome for a stepfather a girl could hope for," she went on. 

"Yeah, that didn't help anything. Hair next?" 

"Please." 

"Have you decided on a style?" Kanaya asked. 

"A pixie, I think. I'm sick of styling it and the summer is the perfect time to have it cut back."

"Have you seen Dave's lately?" Roxy asked, with a snort of laughter. "How much do we want to bet he sat down and actually asked for it to look like Macklemore's?"

"That's hardly a bet we need to actually make," Rose said, with a smile. "Considering I dared him to."

+++

"Hey, you busy?"

Dave quickly hit his save shortcut. 

"Kinda, yeah," he said. "What's up?"

"Get in the truck."

Dave thought about questioning the direction, but he knew there was a zero percent chance he'd get an honest, straight-up answer even if he tried. 

"So where are we going?" Dave asked, his curiosity getting the better of him less than thirty seconds after deciding not to say anything. 

"You got your camera?"

"It's upstairs."

"Go get it," Dirk said. "Camera, phone, wallet, truck. And piss first," he added, disappearing back out into the hallway. 

Dave frowned. He closed his laptop and reattached his pen to the side of his tablet, pushing the whole pile to one corner of the kitchen table. There was definitely no way he was going to get a straight answer out of Dirk before he was ready to give one, so it was easiest to just do what he'd been told to do. 

He went to the bathroom, collected his camera, and stood waiting in the doorway to the living room. 

"So are we going or what?" 

" _You're_ telling me to hurry up?" Dirk asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"No, I'm just saying you told me to hurry up and to piss and all that boring old man shit, and now here I am with shoes on and looking rad in this vintage as fuck Beastie Boys shirt and you're just standing there like an asshole," Dave replied, slouching against the doorframe. 

"See you tonight," Dirk said. He leaned over and kissed Jake goodbye, before turning around to leave the room. 

Dave snorted and waved around his dad's shoulder, before Dirk pushed him back just enough to start him moving out towards the front door. 

When Dirk turned the truck onto the highway, Dave frowned. He'd thought that he was just being dragged to the mall, or on any number of inane errands that needed to urgently be done at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon. But turning onto the highway meant they were going somewhere much further from home than he'd initially thought; the further they drove, the harder it was to keep quiet. 

He flipped his sun visor up and down, took his phone out then put it away, then pushed his seat all the way back so he could put his feet up on the dashboard. He made a point of groaning loudly when he wanted to change the track playing through the radio, reaching out for the button but deliberately falling short so Dirk would do it for him. 

He turned awkwardly in his seat, half lying on his side, so he could just stare out the window at the passing traffic. 

"Where the fuck are we?" Dave asked. 

They'd been driving for forty minutes in almost complete conversational silence. 

"Oceanside."

"And where the fuck is Oceanside?"

"About forty minutes north of San Diego."

"No shit. Why are we here?"

"We're not. We're just passing through," Dirk said. "You doing okay?"

"Peachy," Dave said, shifting in his seat again to sit as close to cross-legged as he could manage in a moving vehicle. "You're just fucking with me now, aren't you? Like, we're not going anywhere, you just said we were going some place to get me in the car and now we're just gonna drive up and down the highway like serial killers searching aimlessly for their next random victim, right? Maybe just with like, less actual murder and shit, huh?"

"You got your fake I.D with you?"

"Yeah, wh - I mean," Dave said, managing to blend his words together well enough that he was calling it a save. "What do you mean, is what I meant to say. I don't have a fake I.D. What would I even do with one?"

"Buy beer."

"Dude, we're not in an eighties movie, no one falls for fake I.Ds anymore. Like, I can't even grow anything resembling facial hair, no one's gonna believe I'm twenty one even if I've got the fake I.D to prove it. I don't even drink beer. I don't want to buy any drugs, either. What else can you even do when you're twenty one that you can't do when you're eighteen? Go to like, clubs and shit? Wow, big fucking deal, dude." 

"But you've got it with you, right?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" 

"Okay, cool," Dirk said. "And you know drugs are illegal even if you're over twenty one, right?"

"No, because I've never once ever tried any so I wouldn't know anything about them," Dave said, straightfaced. "Wait, so what was the fucking point in all that inane horseshit?"

"Your choice, kiddo. Do you want the free ticket or the media pass?"

"Huh?"

"There's a bunch of quarters in the glove compartment if you want to flip for it," Dirk said. 

"No, I mean, passes to what?" Dave asked, turning to face Dirk. "Oh, _come on_! You're retired, Bro, what the fuck? You know that retired means you don't do this shit anymore, right?"

"Hey, a friend asked," Dirk shrugged. "I can pull a fifteen or twenty minute set no problem. We'll be home by midnight."

"So where are we going?" 

"L.A." 

"Of fucking course we are," Dave said with a heavy sigh. "Public or surprise?"

"Public in ten minutes. I'm on at nine."

"So you told me now because my phone is about to fucking explode as soon as it hits five, right?" 

"Pretty much," Dirk said with a laugh. "Relax, it'll be awesome." 

"Oh my God, Cal's in the backseat, isn't he?"

"Always, little dude."

"He's the worst."

"He's my favourite son."

"I know," Dave said, rolling his eyes. "Isn't it weird that he's like, ten years older than me?"

"No weirder than the part where he's a puppet and you're flesh and blood," Dirk shrugged. "So, you gonna brag to your insufferable followers that you got a VIP pass for tonight?"

"Which ticket's the better deal?"

"Doesn't matter, they're both yours in exchange for you driving the first hour home tonight."

"Cool."

"That's the best response you've got?"

"Yeah. Cool," Dave repeated. "Thanks?" 

"Okay, here's how it's gonna go down," Dirk said, reaching over to turn the music down. 

Dave just groaned again; he knew the drill. He mimed the rules along with Dirk as he went through them; don't take drinks from strangers, don't eat anything anyone gives you, don't be an asshole. 

He'd been to more than a few of Dirk's shows throughout his life but it had been a long while since the last one - he'd been retired for just over two years. At least, he'd retired from performing and recording. There was still plenty of activity on his website and social media, plus the book, which had been out for just over a month. He kept on top of everything not because he wanted to hold on to relevancy for as long as possible, but because it was something he could do while being based out of home. 

With people still interested in what he was doing on a daily basis, it was inevitable that Dirk would eventually be asked to put in a guest appearance or two. 

The last twenty minutes of their drive was slow going. The traffic had ground to a halt almost as soon as they'd hit the outskirts of Los Angeles and there was nothing they could do but wait out the jam. Dave turned in his seat to face Dirk, twisting to pull his knees up to his chest with his back leaning against the car door; it took some adjusting to stop his seatbelt cutting into the side of his neck. 

"You know if we crash, you're going through the window, right?" Dirk asked. 

"I sprint faster than we're driving right now."

"Point taken. Something up?"

"Not really," Dave said. He turned his head back to look out the front windscreen. 

He'd never been to Los Angeles before. 

"You lyin'?"

"Nah. Hey, since we're trapped here and all, did Pops ever talk to you about what happened on my first day at work a few weeks back?" 

"Which part? He said you did a pretty good job. Why?"

"Oh my God," Dave grinned. "You guys suck. First you forget to tell me that you're engaged, and then he forgets to tell you that I found out? What a fucking clusterfuck."

"What." 

"Congrats, Dad." 

"Oh c'mon, don't make it weird," Dirk said, taking his eyes off the stand-still traffic to look over at Dave and his smug grin. 

"Weird? Dude, you're the one who somehow forgot to bring it up. I found out because some dumb bitch at the office was gossiping about Pops on her coffee break. _That's_ weird, considering I pretty much talk to him or you every day."

"You know what I mean." 

"He said you were pissed because he beat you to it," Dave said. He was smiling so widely that it was almost unnerving. 

"No, I mean. I wasn't _pissed_ , I just. Look, shut up. You're eighteen, you don't know shit." 

"I know you're both fucking insane."

"You done being a smart ass?" Dirk asked. He looked annoyed enough that Dave put up his hands to surrender. "Yeah, I thought so. You got questions or some shit?"

"Not really," Dave shrugged, his face returning to his usual impassive expression. "I asked Pops if I could be the flower girl." 

"What did he say?"

"That you're not having one." 

"He's right. We're not having a huge thing. We're working on the details. Something small around here, just family, that kind of deal," Dirk explained. "Rox, you kids, Rosie's girlfriend, you know, nothing major."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Can I invite someone?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, Karkat." 

Dirk snorted. 

"Yeah, go nuts. I'll buy him a flight, too." 

"Serious?" Dave asked, grinning again.

"He's got to ask his parents and all that shit, but yeah. We all have to organise shit properly soon, we're doing it in December." 

"When in December?"

"The third?"

"So basically my birthday gift this year is gonna be a step father." 

"Relax, I'll get you some materialistic bullshit too," Dirk said. 

"Yeah, okay," Dave agreed. "So what, it's us, Mom, Rosie, Kanaya, Karkat, and that's it?"

"I should invite your mom's boyfriend and his kid, right?"

"Fuck yes, yes you should! Dude, get John here for my birthday and you don't even need to get me the hundred bucks Starbucks top up." 

"Okay, so those two as well, anyone Jake wants to invite, and that's probably it," Dirk said, grinning at Dave's sudden enthusiasm. "One more thing though, then let's talk the plan of action for tonight."

"Okay, shoot," Dave said. 

"We're not having flower girls or any of that shit, but I'll still need a best man."

+++

"Hold this, I need to pee," Terezi said. She stopped dead in the middle of the lobby and held out her soda, shaking it in the hopes that the rattling ice would get his attention. 

"Okay. You know I can't go in there, right?" Karkat asked, nudging her hand back in towards her body with the back of his. She knew his hands were occupied with his own soda and their popcorn, so he couldn't guide her as well as he wanted to. "In like twelve feet there's two steps up," he added. 

"How far is twelve feet?"

"Shit, I don't know, uh, stop!" 

"Now the steps?"

"Yeah, just two. Then take I guess five steps forward then another five to your left," he said. 

Her movement was slow and cautious as she followed his vague instructions. She listened carefully to him mumbling just how many steps he'd taken, before she felt him tap her elbow again. 

"If you hear me screaming, it means that I either fell into the toilet or I'm being attacked by aliens," she said. "If it's the aliens I think you're allowed to come in and rescue me."

"Yeah, I'm sure that'll go down a fucking treat," Karkat said. She heard him shuffling and a moment later his hand covered hers; he shifted his grip to take the cup. "Like three steps until the door," he added. "I'll wait here." 

"Okay," she said, taking a step and a half before she reached out to find the doorframe. 

Terezi pushed the door open, and stepped into the bathroom. She lifted her glasses up onto her head to help her try and make the most of the light in the room. It had been a while since she'd last been to the cinema and every other time Latula had been around to guide her right to the stalls. The lighting wasn't bright enough to help, so she stood just inside the doorway, waiting impatiently for someone to flush so she could follow the noise in the right direction. 

It was frustrating, to say the least, that going to the bathroom took her a good five minutes longer than it usually did. She could have used the disabled room, but she hadn't thought of that in time; despite the fact it took her far too long to find her way around, the worst part was not having anyone to check if the stall was clean before she locked herself in. 

When she walked back out into the lobby, Karkat's hand immediately found its way to her elbow. 

"I took the popcorn to the kid checking tickets," he said. "I'll take you in first then come back out for it."

Suddenly, her heart felt like it was beating too hard for her chest to cope. 

He talked incessantly during the walk from the bathroom into the cinema, narrating every step they took so that she wouldn't miss out on anything. He listed the posters they passed, explained how far they were from the right door, and even tried to guess the distance in meters - he was wrong, but it was sweet of him to have tried. 

When she finally sat down in the theater, he quickly kissed her forehead before running back to collect their snacks. 

"What's happening?"

The best thing about having Karkat there in the theater with her was listening to him struggle to whisper. It was easy enough to follow along with the story during dialogue-heavy scenes, but the action sequences were a little harder to figure out. The music gave away a lot, but not everything, so she didn't have many other options. 

"The raptors are just staring up at the genetic monstrosity," he replied, keeping his voice as low as possible. "Dumbass Chris Pratt hasn't figured out that thing is crammed full of A-grade raptor DNA yet."

"Is he hot though?"

"I guess? Why?"

"Tula said he was bangin' in _Guardians of the Galaxy_ ," Terezi explained in a whisper. 

"Of course she fucking did. Hey, quit it. Do you have any idea how many people are in this cinema?" Karkat hissed, pulling away as soon as she kissed his shoulder. 

"No, I'm blind, remember?"

"Well, there's a lot, okay?"

"Be specific."

"Do you want me to count every single person in this room?"

"No, but are they all sitting right next to us?"

"No, but that's not the po - you know what, fuck it." 

She was about to whisper her reply, but he kissed her before she could get the words out. She grinned, moving in when he tried to pull away, managing to steal a second kiss before he turned his head back towards the screen. 

"I'm holding you in contempt," Terezi whispered.

"So put me on trial later," he said. "When there's less of a crowd." 

He sounded serious, but she was pretty convinced he was joking. He was definitely focused back on the movie, she could tell from how his shoulder was pressed up against hers. She reached out, slowly, carefully, until her fingers brushed against the corner of his mouth; he was definitely smiling. 

There was something about knowing Karkat Vantas was smiling that made Terezi want to tear his passport to shreds overnight so he couldn't leave. They'd spent a large portion of the last week trying to work out when they could next be together, and unfortunately, Christmas was the soonest option. It would probably be even longer than that, because Karkat was pretty sure his brother was going to be home in New York for the holidays and he didn't want to put her through that hell. 

Even then, Christmas was still six months away. 

"Your mom's here," Karkat said, breaking her out of her thoughts when she felt his hand at the small of her back. 

Terezi knew her mom wasn't going to be home for the entire evening. She'd been able to get away from the office early enough to pick them up from the mall by six, because she had to be back in the Toronto city centre for a business dinner at eight. 

They sat on the living room couch together, Karkat with his legs out and propped up on a footrest and Terezi with her feet on his lap. She listened to the sounds of her mom rushing up and down the stairs, because being late for her event would send a poor message to her clients.

Terezi liked to think she was helping by pointing out places where the missing hoop earring could be, and it took her mom almost ten minutes to remember that she was talking to Terezi, not Latula, and there was no way the advice was genuine or helpful. 

They listened carefully to their instructions for the evening - money in the kitchen for pizza if they were still hungry, additional money in the kitchen to send anyone home in case Latula dragged them in, call if you're going anywhere, should be home by one, two at the latest. 

"Bye, Mom!" Terezi called, leaning her head back over the arm of the couch to face where she knew her mom was standing.

"Call me if you need anything." 

The door closed. 

"So," she started. 

"No."

"That sounds like a thing that is definitely lie." 

"She's not even out of the drive yet," Karkat said, sitting up a little straighter on the couch. 

Terezi frowned at him and swung her legs down off his lap to sit up beside him. She slouched in against his side, lifting up his right arm and putting it down again around her shoulders; she smiled when he kissed her temple. 

They sat together on the couch for what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than ten minutes, before she tried again. 

"Are you seriously watching _Wheel of Fortune_?"

"Fuck, no."

She dragged him upstairs by the hand so fast that neither of them even thought to turn off the TV. 

When Terezi woke up, she assumed it was morning. She had no way of knowing for sure without picking up her phone, and picking up her phone meant moving - there was no way she was doing that. She was warm, but not uncomfortably so. Karkat was lying on his side with one arm stretched out under her pillow and the other draped over her stomach, and her head was tucked up under his chin. 

It was his last morning in Toronto. 

Karkat had been living in her house, her room, her bed, for six weeks and she had no idea how she was going to go back to being alone. She had her family, and Latula was never far away, but that was a completely different situation. It had been hard to come to terms with just how strong her feelings were - she was still learning to process all the emotions involved - but she'd accepted them. And now he was leaving, heading back to New York, in less than twelve hours. 

Karkat stirred, turning onto his back. She felt his hand lift up from her stomach to brush the hair back from her face, lightly, in case she was still dozing. 

"Morning," she whispered, leaning in to press her forehead against his shoulder. 

"Morning," he mumbled in reply. 

"What time is it?" 

She felt him roll over again and listened to the small click his phone made when he illuminated the lock screen. He flopped back down again and turned, hugging her close to his chest. 

"Nine," he said, littering her head with soft kisses. "You're a lawyer, get me citizenship."

"I'm not yet."

"Your mom is."

"Wrong kind."

"Then what's the fucking point?"

"Criminal law is fun," Terezi said, running her hands over his cheeks; he was obviously more upset than he sounded. "There's an hour of my book left, want to listen to it?"

They'd been listening to the last half of _A Dance With Dragons_ together for weeks. 

"Yeah," he said. He gave her another squeeze and then let go; she felt him sit up and throw back his half of the covers. 

"Where are you going?" Terezi asked, mildly confused.

"Bathroom."

"Huh. You might want to find your underwear first because that is probably not a thing anyone wants to see," she said with a snigger. 

"Shut up," he said; she could hear the touch of laughter in his voice. "How would you know?"

"Because I'm blind but all of my other senses are working, so trust me, no one wants to see that." 

"Alright, fuck, it's on," he said. 

Terezi thought about saying something else, but by then he already had the bedroom door open and she didn't want to risk waking anyone else up with her shouting. She picked up her iPod and launched the audiobook library, waiting for Karkat to come back so they could just lie there, together, for the last time until December.

+++

The weirdest things about Dave's house weren't the things that John had gone in expecting to be unusual. He'd known the house was a long way from town, and that calling it a 'town' was actually being generous. He knew that Roxy had a pretty strange style of decorating, that the house was somehow built dangerously close to a river, and that Rose lived there. He'd been expecting all that. 

He hadn't been ready for the sheer scale of the place. Roxy had given him a quick tour, starting in the garage. The basement was completely finished, and broken down into two offices, a den, the laundry, and a bathroom. Upstairs, the kitchen was huge and opened into the equally vast living space. She waved vaguely down a hallway, saying something about a formal dining room and storage that no one had used in probably fifteen years, before quickly showing him around the second floor. Her room, Rose's room, Dave's room, Dirk's room. The family bathroom was for the kids, but Dirk's old room had an ensuite. 

She opened the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall, ushering him in excitedly. 

"You have new sheets, there's some things in the bathroom in case you forgot them, and the best part is here's the AC control panel," Roxy explained. "What do you think?

John lugged his suitcase up onto the bed, and looked around. 

"It's great," he beamed. 

"How're you holding up?" Roxy asked. He watched as she walked around to the far side of the bed to pull the curtains back, revealing a door out onto the front balcony. 

"Kinda tired, kinda hungry. Me and Dad got Wendy's in Philadelphia but that was ages ago and, wait, what time even is it now?"

He thought about opening his suitcase but there wasn't anything in it that he needed straight away, so he just gestured to the door instead. 

"It's almost time to eat, don't you worry about that, Johnny. How's pizza sound?"

"Pretty amazingly awesome," John said. He followed Roxy back out into the hallway and then downstairs, into the kitchen where his dad was still waiting. "Hey, Dad, Roxy says we're having pizza!"

"I heard."

"Hey, actually," Roxy started. "Run back upstairs and ask the girls what kinda pizza they want."

"Huh?"

"Rose and Kanaya are here already," she laughed. "Did I forget to tell you? Oh! Here, take a handful of the diced veggies from the container in the fridge and drop them into Paul's tank while you're up there," Roxy went on. "Go on, the one with the red lid, it should be on the bottom shelf." 

John opened the fridge and scanned the shelves for the right box. 

"Is it this one on the top shelf with the green lid?"

"Same thing," Roxy said dismissively. "Just a big handful for now, you can give her some freeze dried crickets later."

"Gross," he said, scooping out a fistful of mixed vegetables. "Just drop it in?"

"Yeah, but don't bonk her on the head," she laughed, tapping her knuckles on the back of John's head as she walked past. "Oh, and let the girls know we're getting three pizzas so they can do a half and half if they want."

"Okay," John said. He popped the container lid back on and returned it to the fridge, but on the bottom shelf so it would be there for the next time. "Grosser," he said, when he turned around just in time to see Roxy leaning down to kiss his dad. 

"Okay, scram," she said, laughing again. 

John scramed. 

He darted up the stairs, two at a time, and turned around quickly to head down the hall to Dave's room first. He tried to turn on the ceiling lights, but frowned when the bulb barely managed to light up a small circle around itself; the blinds were open, but the trees outside were blocking a lot of the late afternoon sun from entering the room. 

"Hi," he said, leaning down to watch the lizard as he dropped the food into the tank for her. "I'm gonna rename you and call you Casey, 'cause I know it'll piss Dave off, okay?" 

John took his hand out of the tank and turned around to take a good look around Dave's room. It was obvious where he'd taken things down from shelves to move to college with him; there were no gross jars filled with dead animals anywhere in sight. There was, however, a large mason jar half full of small bones and skulls sitting on the edge of the desk. 

His posters were still on the walls, and his closet door was open but void of most of its contents. The bed was even unmade, and had probably been that way since the day he'd left for New York City almost a year earlier. 

John grinned. He could work with that. 

He switched off the light on his way back out into the hall and doubled back, coming to a stop in front of the closed door next to Dave's. 

John raised his hand, and knocked. 

"Come in."

"Surprise!" John exclaimed, swinging the door wide open. 

"John!" Rose cried, standing up from her desk chair as he rushed across the room to envelop her in a tight hug. "How long have you been here?"

"Only ten minutes," he said, laughing as he squeezed her again before finally letting go. "Hi Kanaya!" 

"Hello, John," she said with a smile. "How are you?"

"Tired and hungry, but also excited and all kinds of awake! What are you guys doing?" 

"Kanaya is designing a new dress in the hopes of having a few pre-made by the end of the week, and I'm searching for a relatively easy piece of music because she has unearthed my old violin from deep within my closet and insists I have it restrung," Rose explained. 

"Cool," John said. "Oh, yeah! Pizza. Roxy's gonna order some and wants to know what kind you want." 

"We'll come downstairs with you," Kanaya said, closing her sketchbook. She stood up from her place on the floor and brushed a few stray hairs off her skirt as she did. 

"Can you please hold this?" Rose asked, momentarily turning back around to her desk.

"Sure," John said. "What, shit!" 

Rose had picked up the cat in one hand, but John wasn't entirely prepared when she turned around, and he almost dropped it on the floor. 

"Oh, hush," she said, tapping the cat's nose when it meowed loudly. "Mutie, this is John and you'll treat him just how you treat the rest of us," she said. 

"Like servants?" Kanaya supplied. 

"Precisely," Rose agreed. "Just hand him to my mother, John." 

"Okay," John said, shifting the cat around in his arms so there was less chance of him escaping. "Hey, can I name him something else?"

"No, why?"

"Because I already decided to call Dave's lizard Casey." 

"I'd say yes," Rose said, starting off down the stairs, two steps behind Kanaya. "But the poor creature is blind and confusing him with multiple names will no doubt just end in him shitting on the rug again." 

"Ew?"

"Exactly, John." 

Instead of handing the cat straight over to Roxy, John sat down next to his dad and set Mutie on the table in front of him.

"Johnny?"

"Huh?"

"Pizza?"

"Pepperoni, I guess? No, vegetarian." 

"Got 'em on the list," Roxy said. "Who wants to come into town to pick 'em up?"

"Can we go to Walmart?" John asked. With his attention refocused on Roxy, Mutie managed to step over his arm and jump down off the table and onto Rose's lap. 

"Why?" 

"Because I need some double sided tape, fart bombs, three decks of cards, and some kool aid," he said. "What?"

"Anyone would think you're up to something," Rose said with a sly grin. 

"I'm up to nothing, and no one can prove anything because I'm not even planning anything," John said, making a big show of zipping his lips. 

"Except for?" Dad prompted. 

He sighed. 

"Okay, so I want to tape the fart bombs to the top of Dave's door, like, so when he shuts his door they go off, and maybe put them like, under the edge of his mattress so they explode when he sits down. And the cards I want to just put everywhere to annoy him, even on the outside of his window but I don't know how to get them there yet," he explained, counting off the pranks on his fingers as he went through them. "Oh, and I want to put the kool aid in his shampoo but I don't know what flavor yet."

"John," Rose said, lifting Mutie back up onto the table. "Let me tell you a little secret about my dear, sweet, baby brother." 

"You're going to help him, aren't you?" Roxy deadpanned. 

"Of course I am, how little do you think of me?" Rose said, feigning offence to her mom's comments. "Now, you understand that Dave is blond, correct?"

"Yeah, he looks like a huge nerd," John said with a snort of laughter. 

"No, you see, he's not just blond, he's _blond_."

"Yeah, I know. He posts like three billion selfies a day and I met him at Christmas, remember?"

"I do. You see John, hair as blond as Dave's is highly susceptible to staining. Even my hair, which is noticeably darker, needs toning every month or so to keep it from turning brassy."

"So?"

" _So_ , if you'll let me get to the point, Dave was convinced years ago to exclusively use purple shampoo. While that's a hilarious story in itself, the fact remains that he still has half a bottle of the stuff in the bathroom upstairs. If you were to consider spending a little more on a good quality purple gel food colouring instead of kool aid, your prank would result in definite hair colouring without running the risk of him smelling said kool aid."

"Oh my God," John said slowly. "Yeah, let's do that! Come to Walmart too, so you can find the right stuff!"

"John," Dad started, using his warning tone. 

"It'll wash out! And Dave won't care, he'll think it's super funny!"

"How can you be sure?"

"Because he's Dave!"

"Okay, okay, let's all just calm down," Roxy said, reaching down to adjust one of her shoes. "You can do it if you're one thousand percent prepared for the fallout in case he doesn't take it like a joke, and if you don't tell him I knew what you were planning."

"Really, Roxy?"

"Oh, hush, it'll be fine," she added, hand waving his dad's concerns aside. "Who knows what he thinks is cool right now anyway?"

"Regardless of what's cool, it loses a lot of the impact once Dave is involved," Rose said. 

" _Rosie_ ," Roxy warned. "Alrighty, so me and Johnny'll be back once we hit up Walmart and grab the pizza on the way back. Let's go, kiddo." 

"Bye, Dad! And Rose, and Kanaya!" 

John waved at everyone and spun around so quickly that his sneakers screeched on the tiled floor, darting back down the basement stairs after Roxy. 

The rest of the evening went by in a blur. It didn't help that he was already tired from the multiple flights it had taken to get to Roxy's house, but driving into town for joke supplies only made his jet lag even worse. 

John devoured a few slices of pizza then raced upstairs to set everything up; he couldn't remember what time exactly that Dave was getting in, but he knew it was sometime around mid-afternoon the next day.

He laid down rows of double sided tape and stuck the fart bombs to it, careful not to force them into place with too much pressure. He added some into the hinge of Dave's closet door as well, and stuck one under the edge of the mattress for good measure. 

Rose helped him with the shampoo prank. She picked out the shampoo from the bottom of the shower and unscrewed the cap; John was surprised by just how purple the goo was already. They added a large scoop of the gel colouring to the bottle and mixed it through; the colour went a little darker, but nothing that would be suspicious. 

It was hard enough to sleep that night, despite his complete and utter exhaustion. John kept checking his phone to make sure that it was set to the right timezone, and every time picked up the device he had to remind himself not to text Dave, because everyone had lied to him and said the Egberts weren't arriving for another week.

He couldn't sit still. His Dad scolded him more than once through breakfast for being too keyed up, and for being too rough with the crockery because his mind was somewhere else. He got his finger stuck in the fly of his shorts when he tried to do them up too quickly, and almost fell down two flights of stairs when Roxy finally announced it was time to head out to the station. 

"So, how're we gonna play this?" 

"Huh?"

"Well, we're five minutes from the station and Dave's train should be there in ten," Roxy explained. "So what's your plan?"

"Oh, shit!" John exclaimed. "I don't know?! I wanted to hide in the trunk but your car is a van so that's not as exciting. I could jump out from behind something like a trash can maybe? Oh! I know!"

"Whatcha gonna do?"

"Shove him down a flight of friendship stairs." 

John was only half serious about his plan. Pushing Dave down a flight of stairs was something he could do anytime he wanted - the Lalonde house was full of stairs. 

The train had pulled into the station a minute or two earlier, and people were starting to file out of the front doors. John had factored in a little extra time because he knew how long it had been since Dave had last seen his mom, but when five whole minutes had passed since the train came to a stop, he cautiously peered around the corner. 

There they were. 

John grinned and pulled his dad's hat down over his hair; he'd found it lying on the back seat of the car. He took a deep breath, tilted his head down towards the floor, and started walking. 

He looked up just enough to make sure that there was no one else in his way, but the path was clear. He kept moving, one step at a time, until he was less than six feet away. He moved quickly then, so he bumped his shoulder into Dave's as he passed. 

"Shit, sorry, bro," Dave said without turning around; he just adjusted the strap of his backpack and kept walking. 

John frowned. Dave was such an idiot. 

He spun on his heel, and shouted. 

"Hey, idiot!" 

Dave froze. 

John just stood there grinning when Dave finally turned around, because his mouth was hanging open in surprise and he definitely looked like a huge idiot. 

" _I'm_ the idiot?"

"Yeah!"

Before he could do anything to stop it from happening, John was knocked back off his feet when Dave charged him at full speed; they both went crashing to the floor of the station lobby in a heap. 

Roxy burst out laughing and snapped a photo of them both lying on the ground, side by side, each shoving the other back down again as they tried to get to their feet. 

"Alright, alright, that's enough," she said eventually. "You can beat the crap out of each other at home, let's get moving." 

Dave was the first to get back on his feet, using John's shoulder to help push himself up. 

"How the fuck are you here already?"

"Easy," John said, taking the hand Dave held out to help pull him up. "We all totally lied to you, I got here yesterday."

"You're a fucking asshole, you know that?"

"Yeah," he beamed. "But I'm older than you, remember?"

"By eight months, big fucking deal, John," Dave said; even though he was obviously rolling his eyes, he couldn't stop grinning. 

"So older brothers are supposed to be assholes," he pointed out, laughing when Dave tried to shove him into a doorway. 

The next few weeks were going to be awesome.


	2. [A6.1A2]: it's not my fault i'm your favourite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's still summer, and summer means family vacations.

**July, 2015**

When Dave woke up, the world was quiet. 

He lay in bed - his own bed, not his dorm bed, or a fold out couch - with his eyes closed for as long as he could, just listening. 

There was no traffic, no neighbours yelling, not even the faint shuffling of the kid in the next room over doing the same thing he was doing. 

All he could hear was the birds. 

He pulled on a new t-shirt with a San Diego, California logo splashed across the chest and rummaged through his suitcase until he found a relatively clean pair of sweatpants. He went through the second drawer of his desk to find a pair of glasses he couldn't have worn in months, sliding the well-scuffed Wayfarers onto his face.

"Hey, I missed you," he mumbled, looking down into Paul's tank. She looked up at him expectantly, so he reached into the glass enclosure and scooped her up into his arms before leaving his bedroom.

Rose's door was still firmly closed and probably would be for another few hours. His mom's door was shut as well, but he figured that was for the best. John, however, had left his door open and Dave could just see his hair and one foot sticking out from under the covers. 

He frowned, realising he could smell coffee.

With Paul moved to his shoulder for safe keeping, he trudged down the hall to follow up on the mystery smell that was slowly seeping upstairs.

"Morning," he said, forcing himself to enunciate his words as clearly as he could manage so soon after waking up. 

"Good morning, Dave. Coffee?"

"Yeah, thanks. Black."

"Sugar?"

"Nah."

He watched as John's dad wiped his hands down on his apron and moved across to the coffee maker. 

"Any mug in particular?"

"Mine's the Tony Hawk one with the red handle," Dave said, still watching closely. 

Dad picked up the pot and the mug, waiting until everything was on the table before he poured Dave's coffee. 

"And you're sure about the sugar?"

"Yeah. Thanks," he said, reaching over for his mug. "So what's with all this?"

"Breakfast?"

"Yeah. But like, pop tarts are cool enough, you know?"

"Every good vacation needs good breakfast," John's dad said. "What kind of pancakes would you like?"

"Wait, what do you mean what kind?"

"Plain, blueberry, or chocolate chip?"

"Holy shit, uh, one blueberry, one chocolate. Are you for real?"

"I made the batter already, it's only a matter of scattering in the add ons."

"Oh my God," Dave mumbled.

It was only just dawning on him that the pancakes weren't his only breakfast option. There was a batch of muffins in the oven, probably filled with the strawberries from the empty punnets stacked up on the edge of the sink. Eggs stood already beaten in a bowl, waiting to be scrambled, and a large pack of bacon lay open next to the stove. 

He knew that John's dad was into the whole baking thing - he'd experienced it first hand over Christmas. But for some reason, Dave hadn't been expecting the same kind of thing to happen in his own house. 

Dirk had always been the best cook in the family. Legendary mac and cheese aside, he was fully capable in the kitchen as a result of the numerous semesters he spent taking home economics back in high school. He'd initially enrolled in the subject out of spite, but kept taking it over when he realised he was good at it; no one had been willing to call him out on it, at least not to his face. Roxy could manage, but her range was limited to a handful of tried and tested recipes. Dave coped well enough with instructions, and his first instruction was always to keep Rose out of the kitchen entirely. 

There was cookware on the counter that Dave hadn't seen in years. 

"Did you sleep well?"

The question snapped him out of his daze. He'd been pulling kissy faces at Paul for a solid three minutes. 

"Yeah, it's hella quiet back up here," he said. "It's great. I mean, it's not like Bro and Pops live smack bang in the middle of the city or anything, but they're in like, inner suburbia I guess? So there's always cars and kids screaming and like, main roads not too far away. Kinda like your place, but with a thousand percent more palm trees."

"How very Californian."

"Yeah, it's always hilarious because Bro's from upstate too, and Pops isn't even American," Dave said, standing up from the table. He crossed the kitchen and swung open the fridge door; he frowned when he realised that the crisper was actually full of vegetables. "Like, whatever, you know? The only reason they live there is because Pops works at the zoo, it's not like they both love surfing or anything, or whatever else people do in California. Did you buy all this?"

Dave waved his hand towards the relatively full fridge shelves. 

"I had a hand in the grocery selection, yes. Syrup?"

"Yeah," he said, sitting back down in his spot at the kitchen table. He reached over, setting out the pre-sliced vegetables in a line for Paul, organising them so that she would loop around the table and end up back in front of him again. 

John's dad slid a plate down in front of him, stacked with two of each type of pancake. 

"Damn," Dave drawled, reaching for the maple syrup. "These are totally not Bisquick, right?"

"Never."

"You're not having any?" 

"I already ate," Dad said. He sat down opposite Dave with his own cup of coffee, in Dirk's old spot, and just smiled as Dave started cutting up his breakfast. "Do you cook much?"

Dave held up a finger while he chewed his first mouthful of pancakes.

"Nah, not lately," he said. "I've got a meal plan so it's all good. I mean, it's not great food but it's mostly edible. And Karkat's mom makes me eat there like every time I go over, because she's like that, and I rack up so many Starbucks points they throw free shit at me whenever I go in which is pretty sweet."

"You used to though?"

"Yeah, Mom's not great but you probably know that already," Dave sniggered. "Bro was in charge of food for like ten years, so, I can manage to not burn down the kitchen. What about you? You're right into this baking shit, huh?"

"You do what you have to for your kids," John's dad said. "And whether I had one or two of them, they needed to be fed."

"With cake?"

"Someone had to win the bake sales."

"Do bake sales have winners?"

"Unofficially, yes. It was always tremendously satisfying to outsell the head of the PTA."

"Holy shit," Dave said, abandoning all pretense and speaking through a mouthful of half-chewed blueberry pancakes. "No wonder Mom likes you, you're just as much of a lunatic as she is."

"Thank you," Dad laughed over the top of his coffee mug. 

"No, like, I don't mean it as a bad thing. I just mean that you were kind of the outlier there for a while," Dave explained. He pushed his empty plate forward across the table and waggled his fingers in Paul's direction; she was too preoccupied with a large kale leaf to notice. "It's hard to explain. Mom's, well, like, you know what Mom's like. She's got the whole manic pixie dream girl shit going one minute and the next she's gone full on Velma from Scooby Doo, and then in the third minute she's Einstein."

"I do know, yes." 

"Yeah, so in comparison you seemed like a totally normal dude, right? But it's even weirder because yeah, Mom is like that, but she's got nothing on Bro and Jake."

"I've heard a lot of stories about them over the years."

"Okay, so you know that Bro somehow made a career out of the fact that the early two thousands were just this bizarre few years where everything was normal and murder puppets singing albums was totally cool with the world, but Jake is like, a whole level of weird above that even when he's trying not to be," Dave went on, unsuccessfully trying again for Paul's attention. 

"But not in a bad way?"

"Nah, it's never bad, it's just like. The guy is this academic zoologist who works for the fucking San Diego Zoo but he probably has like, undiagnosed ADHD or something because what is a single train of thought, right? And he's so into shitty movies and guns and skulls that I'm pretty sure at least two out of three are total fetishes or something." 

"In much the same way that talking incessantly is for you, correct?" 

Dave's head snapped around when his sister unexpectedly spoke from right over his shoulder. 

"Good fucking morning to you, too, hellspawn." 

"I like your haircut," she said, running her fingers through the longer section at the top of his head. "I was expecting the sides to be shorter than they are." 

"They were, but they grew out." 

"I can see that," Rose said. She moved her fingers down to run through the shorter hair just above his ears and then leant forwards, resting her elbows on his shoulder and her chin on the crown of his head. "I'll buy you something nice if you cut it back again and keep it that way until Christmas." 

"No way, sister sister," Dave said, trying to shrug Rose away. "You went and got yourself something close enough to mine that I feel cheated out of my own hairstyle." 

He took his phone from the pocket of his sweatpants and opened Snapchat to take a photo; Rose's all-knowing smile was a nice contrast to his own crooked smirk. He saved a copy of the picture and then set it to play as part of his Story. 

"And what do you propose we do about that?" Rose asked, finally standing up from her place leaning over her brother. She gave his shoulder a comfortable squeeze before she let go entirely, sitting down in the empty chair beside him. 

"I'll just stop getting my hair cut," Dave shrugged. "We can't go around existing at the same time with the same haircut, that's weird." 

"Good morning, Rose."

John's dad finally interrupted their back and forth pseudo-argument. Dave had been wondering how long he'd let them go on for before he decided to step in. 

"Good morning, Mr. Egbert," she replied sweetly. "I'd apologise for Dave, but no doubt our mother has already done that multiple times in the past."

"Rude as fuck," Dave said indignantly. He pushed his chair back and scooped Paul up from the table, settling her down on his forearm for the walk. "I'm going for a shower. Save me a muffin, Mr. E."

+++

"How much do you miss your boyfriend?" 

"Shut up."

"Hahah, don't you know by now that you should really keep your trap shut? I can turn denial into guilt and have any jury believe it."

"I said shut up, he's not even my boyfriend," Vriska snapped. 

Not for lack of trying, however. 

Her fingers moved quickly over the keys of her laptop, typing out one thing while she talked about another. Every so often her eyes would dart up to the Skype overlay to see if Terezi was making faces at her, which, more often than not, she was. 

"You do know why, don't you?"

"What's that? Oh, there is is. Stop meddling!" 

"Okay, jeez," Terezi said, reaching over her shoulder to pick up a pillow. Vriska watched from the corner of her eye as her friend turned to lie sideways on her bed. "Who said what last?"

Vriska could always appreciate a terrible segue.

"I'm working on it, Pyrope!" 

"I meant before that! I can't remember!" 

"Ugh," Vriska groaned loudly, making her displeasure as audible as possible, just in case Terezi had all of a sudden lost her hearing as well. "We went and looted that ship, the one that was washed up on the beach but abandoned, and we found a small box of treasure."

"And then we took it to the secret hideout, right?"

"Yeah, but Apocalypse saw us and found our hideout, so we kidnapped her. That's where we left off. So I'm writing up my next part, and when I'm done I'll log in as you and do yours." 

"Okay. So what are you doing?"

"Making her scrub the galley." 

"Okay, but weren't we storing a corpse in there?"

"Shit, you could have said that before I posted it!" Vriska exclaimed.

"When did you post it!?"

"Just before you said that! You know we're not allowed to edit!"

"I don't think she'll care," Terezi said flatly. "She's weird."

Vriska knew that Terezi had a point, but she was still annoyed. She'd had a long day at work and had an early start the next morning, why should she be the one to remember where she'd stored an imaginary corpse on her roleplay forum? 

She was taking on as many extra shifts as she could while John was in New York. It wasn't like she had a lot else going on, so she figured that filling in the time with something she was actually paid to do was probably her best option. 

All she did was work. She'd quit college because it was dumb and she wasn't interested in anything she was learning - she didn't want to be stuck with any additional debt for something that she hated. The only problem was that there was nothing for her at home anymore; she could go back to Florida and hate everything there, or she could just stay in Seattle and hate things a little less. 

It was easier to stay. 

So she stayed, filling her days with full-time shifts at Starbucks so she could make rent and afford to eat. She picked up extra shifts over the weekends, stayed late and started early where she could, because every dollar counted in the big city. The job was easy enough - boring, but easy. 

"Whatever. Do you want to go next or do you want to wait for her to reply to me first?" Vriska asked. She uncrossed her legs and stretched them both out in front of her, underneath the coffee table, and started picking at what looked like an ingrown hair just below her knee. 

"Wait for her to go. I want to see if she remembers that we put the body in there," Terezi said. She turned over again so she was lying on her back, staring at her laptop from upside down. 

"I can see you, remember?" Vriska said when Terezi stuck her tongue out. 

"Only with one eye!"

"That's one more than you've got." 

"That's not even true. I have two perfectly good eyes that just can't see anything at all anymore except sometimes bright lights. You, on the other hand, have one good eye and one eye that is missing a chunk out of it," Terezi said factually. "Therefore, I have more eyes than you."

"That's not how it works."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not," Vriska insisted. "What about Lalonde then?"

"Her eyes are just fine and apparently they are very pretty, but I am only speaking from rumor."

"Not her, the other Lalonde. John's Lalonde."

"Oh. I guess Dave has less eyes than me but more eyes than you, because he only has deformed muscles and pigments but you have a literal chunk missing from your eye," Terezi said with an awkward, upside down shrug. 

"Now you're just being rude because you can be," Vriska said snidely. "So shut up and help me choose what to have for dinner."

"You should have a bowl of shut the fuck up, Vriska." 

"That was even ruder, Rudy McRuderson," Vriska frowned. 

Terezi burst out laughing and rolled back over onto her stomach. It took her a few seconds to orient herself again, shifting the pillow under her chest before she reached out to check that her laptop was still where she thought it was. 

"I would say sorry but I don't want to."

"Why not!?"

"Because I'm still mad at you for laughing when I told you all about Karkat."

"That's not even my fault!" Vriska exclaimed. "It was hilarious! If you didn't want me to laugh you shouldn't have told me how he -"

"Okay, okay, stop it!" Terezi shouted back. "Say sorry and I'll stop being mad."

"I'm not saying sorry for laughing."

"Then I'm just going to stay mad until you do. Has she replied yet?"

"No! I'll tell you when she does but first you need to tell me what to eat," Vriska said, pulling her knees in so she could stand up. 

"I already told you what to eat."

"That's not a real food."

"Do you even have any real food in your house?" Terezi asked. 

Vriska opened her mouth to yell back at her laptop, but when she realised she was staring into a fridge full of nothing but condiments, she just shut it again. 

"I have a frozen pizza," she said, after she swung the freezer door open. "So I guess I'm having frozen pizza." 

"You should probably cook it first." 

"Why are you being so awful to me today?" Vriska asked. She had to yell a little, because her laptop was still on the coffee table and she was making a lot of noise trying to get the pizza ready to cook. 

"Because it is so much easier than being awful to myself." 

Vriska frowned, then let the oven door slam itself shut after she shoved the pizza in to bake. 

"It's not even your fault, probably, for whatever it is," she said, sinking down into the corner of the couch to half lie with her head resting on the arm. "Wait, is it my fault again?"

"No. Kind of, not really though. No. Today just kind of sucked a lot."

"Why?"

"Because this morning you were being awful and not listening to me," Terezi said, dropping her head down onto her folded arms. "It's different no matter how much you say it's not." 

"It's not that different just because you've had sex with him now," Vriska said pointedly. 

"Well it kind of is, but I meant that it is different between me and Karkat and you and John, and not just because I've definitely had sex with Karkat now."

"Which is totally gross, because unlike you, I know what he looks like." 

"Rude!" 

"It's not my fault it's true!"

"I just need you to actually listen to what I say sometimes and not just roll your eyes and tell me that you are more right than me," Terezi said. "Because you are my favourite but you are also definitely a huge bitch sometimes."

"I keep telling you that's not my fault," Vriska said. 

"It is definitely your fault that you are such a huge bitch."

"No, I mean that it's not my fault I'm your favourite." 

Terezi sniggered. 

"Hey!" Vriska exclaimed suddenly, jerking her laptop over and onto her knees so quickly that the scraping sound made Terezi jump. "Sorry, but Apocalypse replied already!" 

"What did she say?" Terezi asked, perking up a little after the brief detour through a conversation far more emotional than either of them were prepared to actually have on a Thursday night; the interruption was timed perfectly. 

"She found the corpse, fuck. Oh, wait. She mopped around him then braided his hair," Vriska said, rolling her eyes. 

"Why is she so weird?!" 

"I don't know?!"

They both burst out laughing, loudly, any remaining trace of resentment suddenly dissipating from the conversation. 

"Okay," Terezi said. "Here's what happens next. Are you ready?"

"Shoot, Pyrope."

+++

Dave had almost forgotten what it was like to live with someone who went out of their way to fuck with him. After the first three fart bombs had detonated in his room he was back on a high enough alert that he expected to find Cal in his bed at any minute; when no one was watching, he knocked back one of his pills to help take the edge off. 

John swore that the fart bombs were all he'd done and it was easy enough to believe him. He pulled off the confused innocence thing well enough that Dave was convinced that he'd get through life on that act alone. Even if his apology was mostly bullshit, it was genuine enough that Dave knew he realised he'd overstepped an arbitrary line too early into his trip. 

Except that John's act was far better than Dave thought. 

Dave hadn't realised his hair was purple for a full three hours. He'd put his glasses back on as soon as he got out of the shower and that was that. No one said anything until he sent out a series of Snapchats - Karkat had replied with an explosive rant about his hair. 

It had been over a week since then and the deep purple was fading fast. Dave had been pissed for an entire ten minutes before trying to claim it was just hair; Rose had called him out when she suggested that he wouldn't have even had the twenty dollar shampoo if he thought that was remotely true. 

He'd flipped her off and gone to write up a blog post about the prank. 

"Okay, Johnny, let's see here," Roxy said, rummaging through the back of the closet. "Are you sure Dave doesn't have anything that fits?"

"Kind of, but they're like, a size too small. He's too scrawny." 

"Not through lack of trying," she said. "He's either going to hit a brick wall one day and get super fat or he'll just cruise through with his pointy elbows getting all up in everyone's business all the time. Here, try these." 

"I'm standing right here, you assholes," Dave said flatly, slouching further into the doorframe. 

"Well it's true. You live off sugar and carbs." 

"Make 'em less delicious and I'll stop eating 'em." 

"Look, you're right but you're also eighteen. Give it another few years. How do they fit, Johnny?" Roxy called into the ensuite. 

"Better than Leela's." 

"Whose?"

"Dave's. Because his hair is still purple," John said, emerging from the bathroom in a pair of Dirk's old swim trunks. "It's not funny when I have to explain it."

"Or it's just not funny at all," Dave suggested. 

"No, it is," John insisted. "So is the water deep enough to jump out of a window?"

"Nah," Dave said, turning to lead everyone back out of the room. "There's some good trees though." 

"Cool." 

"Okay, you two go on. The girls are already outside as far as I know," Roxy said. "I'll be there soon." 

"Later, Mom," Dave said, ducking back into his room to pick up a few things. He grabbed his phone, two towels, traded his good glasses for his black Wayfarers with the cracked frames, and a spare pair of flip flops. "Here," he said, passing the shoes over to John when he walked back out into the hall. "You'll need 'em." 

"Why?" 

"Rocks and bugs and shit," he shrugged. "Hey, grab the sunscreen from the bathroom, unless you dyed that, too." 

"Nope, just your shampoo," John said, turning on his heel to double back to the main bathroom. "This one?"

"Yeah. Sweet, let's go." 

Dave was well aware of the irony involved in a family like his his living out in the woods. They never really went on hikes, or fished, or did anything that most people move out of the suburbs to do. They just weren't the outdoor kind of people. 

However, when the summers rolled around, they didn't have to go far at all to feel like they were on vacation. 

He led John out through the back of the house and down a path paved with stones, which had all long since cracked and distorted in the harsh winter weather. It weaved through what was technically the backyard, passed under a rusted over clothes line, then started sloping downhill.

Dave made a turn away from the house just past a poorly hacked-off tree stump, following a narrow trail in the dirt. He turned again at another tree cut down to knee height, this time onto a series of barely formed stairs in the dirt, still heading upstream. 

"Ta-da," he said boredly, once they emerged in a small clearing. "Bam, swimming pool." 

"Woah," John said. "Is this part of your house?"

Dave shrugged. 

"This patch of dirt is the sunbaking pit, over the other side of the river is where me and Rosie used to have secret meetings as kids, that tree there is the best for climbing, and that boulder is the only one you jump off," he explained, pointing to each location as he went through the list. "The water is deeper there." 

"Cool," John said. "Hi, Rose! Hi Kanaya!"

"Hello, John," Kanaya replied with a smile. "What an enthusiastic greeting from someone we last saw less than twenty minutes ago."

"You're even more sarcastic off the internet," he said with a frown. 

"I try."

The two girls were lounging at the shaded end of the clearing on their towels, their bathing suits still dry. They had come prepared with a well-worn book each to keep them occupied, and Rose had a pair of Dave's sunglasses - the scuffed up red Wayfarers he'd left with her before she moved to college - perched on the tip of her nose. 

"Hey, wanna see who can hold their breath the longest?" John asked suddenly. 

"It bet it's not you," Dave said. 

"Well, your bet is so wrong you don't even know! Hey, Rose, can you hold my glasses?" 

"Can you see without them?"

"Nope!" John exclaimed. He held out his glasses, waving them in Rose's face until she took them out of annoyance more than anything else. "Let's go!"

He stopped at the edge of the water, trying to figure out how deep it was, but before he could make a decision about whether or not to just jump in, Dave suddenly shoved him forward and dived in after him. 

When they surfaced, Dave just laughed at how poor John's vision actually was without his glasses. He dodged every attempt John made to lunge at him and eventually dove under the surface and knocked him off his feet from below. 

"Hey, stand still," Dave said, once John had found his footing again. He put his hands out and leapfrogged up onto John's shoulders; they almost overbalanced, but the water was enough to take the brunt of his weight. "Rose! Check it out! Hey, Rose!"

"I'm very impressed," Rose said, without looking up from her book. 

"Well fuck you too!"

"Rooose!" John called. "Rose, you're not looking!" 

"There's a reason for that," Rose replied. She still didn't look up. 

"Mom, Rose is being a bitch!"

"I've been here for literally three seconds, baby, give it a minute before you start your shit," Roxy said with a sigh, walking out through the trees. "Very impressive."

"See, Rose!" John called. "Your mom thinks it's imp - shit!"

When Dave swung all of his weight backwards, he threw John off balance and they both went crashing back down into the water again. He broke the surface first, laughing hard when John emerged with his hair stuck down to his head.

"Nice look, bro," he sniggered, leaning back into the current and paddling to keep himself in place. 

"Shut up, your hair is purple," John countered. He spat a mouthful of water in Dave's direction, but he was too far away for any of it to hit. 

"You're so dead."

It wasn't until much later in the day, once everyone was sufficiently worn out and the tips of the Lalonde's noses were all burnt, that it really sunk in what they were all doing. 

It was almost like a family vacation. 

As Dave shoved half a sandwich into his mouth, he realised that John was sitting beside him, tearing the crusts off the other half. Rose had a towel wrapped around her shoulders to keep the sun off her skin, while Kanaya lay beside her, her face covered with the trailing end of the same towel. His mom was lying with her head resting in John's dad's lap, his hand occasionally brushing back the hair that the breeze left over her face. 

It was nice, he thought. It was almost too nice, and everyone seemed too happy, but he didn't want to jinx anything so he stayed quiet and kept his thoughts to himself. 

As soon as John swallowed the last of their sandwich, Dave raised an eyebrow and nodded back at the river. John mirrored the expression, and then they were on their feet again, racing each other back into the water.

+++

It was hard to say how he'd gotten as far as he had in life. Things just seemed to go wrong around him - they always had, and he was convinced they always would. He didn't remember the accident that had ruined his brother for life, but he was fully aware that the incident was what led to his mom walking out. 

It was his fault that he and Mituna had lived alone for years. Everything he'd been involved in years earlier, all the various trials and still open court cases, had left him unable to enter military property. He wasn't legally allowed to live on the naval base with his father, nor was he legally allowed to live alone while he was still a minor. So his dad had done the only thing he was able to do, and set everything up for his kids to continue living in New York. 

He'd almost been kicked out of college, more than once, because of his apathy towards the whole system. He was going back in the fall, to continue his course, but only because he was being forced to get a degree. If it had been up to him, he would have dropped out in the first week.

Sollux pushed himself up and just sat in bed for a few minutes. It was going to be an okay day. He felt okay. Nothing more, nothing less. Just okay. He rolled his shoulders a few times to help his joints slip back into place more easily, then cracked his neck in at least three places. When he finally rolled out of bed he slipped his glasses on, then dropped into the chair at his desk. He took the small lockbox from his top drawer and started entering the combination to open it; he flipped the lid and tipped out one of each pill into his palm. He relocked the box, returned it to the drawer, and dry swallowed his medication because the nearest water bottle was just out of arm's reach. 

He needed food and caffeine, in that order, because he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. It was probably the day before, but he couldn't be sure. He spun his chair around and stood up again, locking his bedroom door once he was out in the hallway. 

It was going to be an okay day. 

Mituna was sitting up at the kitchen counter, quietly, all of his attention focused on the Nintendo 3DS in his hands. There was no point in saying anything to him because he was too far off in his own world to even hear the greeting. 

There was someone else in the kitchen, though. 

"Good morning, sleepyhead!" Aradia exclaimed brightly. "Jokes! It's not even morning anymore!"

"Super funny, AA."

There were very few things that had worked out in his favour, and Aradia was one of them. 

The previous five months had been their own unique kind of bizarre. Sollux hadn't expected anything to come from talking to Aradia that one afternoon back in February. She'd started up a conversation first, contacting him the next day through Pesterchum, and they'd spoken on and off for a few weeks. When she'd asked him to meet up with her for lunch one day, he'd fought every impulse that told him it was a bad idea and managed to only be ten minutes late. 

Somehow, he'd managed to be impressive enough that she kept in contact, even after spending two hours with him. 

Aradia wormed her way into his life after that, bit by bit, a little at a time. She was everything that he wasn't - bright, friendly, open, and loving. Her chosen major was archaeology and she loved everything about it, right down to cataloguing samples. Despite her vibrant outlook on life, she was also fascinated by spirits and the unseen, and sometimes let herself get carried away by thoughts about the vast emptiness of space. He liked that about her.

Then, suddenly, back in May, he'd woken up one day and realised that he had a girlfriend. He asked her about it and she just laughed, asking him in return what he thought they'd been doing for three months. 

Sollux just shrugged.

She started spending even more time at his place after that. 

"I can't help it if I'm super funny," she said, aiming double finger guns in his direction. "Or maybe you're just a super bore." 

"Both," he said, trying to step around her to get to the coffee machine. "What're you doing?"

"Nothing," she said, grinning as she matched each one of his steps. 

"You're in my way."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

"What's the password?" Aradia asked with a grin, lifting herself up onto the kitchen counter. 

"Give me the coffee pot," Sollux said with a scowl.

"Wrong!"

"Give me the fucking coffee pot, _please_."

"Wrong again!"

He just rolled his eyes, then leant forward to give her a quick kiss. 

"What about that?"

"I'll take it," she said, turning to collect the pot from behind her. "It could've been better."

"I haven't even brushed my teeth," Sollux said. He filled a mug with coffee and and put the near-empty pot down in the sink. 

"One day, this planet will explode and everything that ever existed will go with it. I think I can survive you not brushing your teeth," Aradia said. 

"I can only hope it does," he muttered, leaning back against the counter. "So how long has he been like that?"

"He was already sitting there when I got up at nine."

"You think he went to sleep?"

"He did. I was awake for a long time after you fell asleep," she said, smiling to herself when Sollux leaned in against her. "You were having those dreams again."

"So?"

"So what was it like?" 

"Loud. Are you doing shit today?" Sollux asked, turning his head to look at her. 

"I want to go back to the museum. Are you sure you don't want to come?" Aradia asked. 

"It's a government institution." 

"But how will they know?"

"Because my phone is their phone and I can't turn the GPS off." 

"I bet you can!"

"No, I know I can, it's not hard. They'll just come and pick me up if I do," Sollux clarified.

"I'm going to make you come with me one day," she said with a frown. 

"Do you want to call the FBI and ask them to send me a babysitter?"

"Yes!"

"No."

"Aw."

Aradia jumped down from the counter and left Sollux in the kitchen after that. By the time he finished his coffee, she was dressed to leave the apartment in everything but her shoes. He sat down on the arm of the couch and watched as she fought with the buckles on her sandals, trying in vain to get the little loop to slip into place. 

She smiled to herself when it did. 

"I'll be home soon," she said. "What are you going to do all day?"

"Food shopping, I guess," he shrugged. "I've got some work that might take a while." 

"Did they give you any information this time?" Aradia asked, her eyes wide. 

"Nope. Same shit as always, here's a chunk of something, figure out what it is, what it does, and finish it off," Sollux said. "Have fun?"

"I will," she said. She reached over to pat his left cheek and kissed the other, leaving a faint lipstick stain on his jaw. "See you later!"

She swung the door closed behind her, and then she was gone. 

Sollux sighed and folded his arms across his chest, his shoulders hunched as he doubled back through the apartment. 

"You want the bathroom?" 

"Fuck off," Mituna replied; he didn't look up from the DS. 

"Cool."

It was easy enough for him to waste entire days away. He'd spent a large proportion of the last few years doing just that; wake up, shower, fuck around, watch TV, then go to bed and repeat. He'd missed a lot of high school for various reasons and all that time spent out of the classroom had to be filled somehow - he could lose entire weeks if he tried hard enough. 

With Aradia living in his apartment over the summer, he'd tried to alter his sleep patterns but nothing seemed to stick. Whether it was habit ingrained too deeply, a medication side effect, or something else entirely he didn't know, but it was still far too easy for him to somehow lose hours of his day. 

It was her slamming the front door that dragged him back into the world. She dropped her purse and whatever else she'd been carrying onto the floor as she crossed the living room, until she just flopped down on top of him. 

"Hey," Sollux said, looking down at the top of her head. She was just lying there, silently, her head facing the back of the couch rather than the TV. "AA?"

"I'm so tired," she mumbled. "So much to see."

"You could have just gone back tomorrow."

"I probably will anyway," Aradia said brightly. She moved her hands up onto his chest and used them to support her chin, so that she could look up at him. "Are you _sure_ you don't want to come with me?"

"I can't."

"Or _won't_?"

"Can't," Sollux grunted.

"I know," she smiled. "But sometimes it's fun to watch you get annoyed. Where's Mituna?" 

"He went to his room two hours ago so he's either still playing whatever the fuck he's playing on the 3DS or jerking off."

"Or both?"

"Or that." 

"Move your butt and pass me my laptop," she said, sliding back a little so Sollux could get his legs free from under her. "Someone's been sending me annoying messages all day."

"I didn't send you anything," he said. He picked up Aradia's laptop from the floor beside the couch and handed it over, then let her arrange both herself and his legs until she was comfortable.

"I don't mean you! I mean Arachnids. She's been super annoying for the last two weeks."

"That's because Trickster is at Godhead's place so she's got no other fucking friends to annoy."

"Aw, rude."

"It's not rude if it's true," Sollux said, shifting his legs a little so that Aradia could use his shins as a table for her laptop. "He's there for another week."

"Fuck."

+++

John walked into his bedroom, and grinned; it was good to be home.

It had been hard to say goodbye to everyone in New York. They'd spent three weeks living together, almost like a real family, and that was something that John definitely wasn't used to. It had been just him and his dad for years, since Jade had left to go on adventures with her grandpa, and he'd couldn't remember what it was like living with a mom. 

Sure, he'd grown up with Roxy visiting for a few days here and there, but having her around full time was a completely different experience. 

He'd never had a brother before, either; it was awesome. 

John lugged his suitcase in from the hallway and unzipped it in the middle of his floor. He was home, and home for good. He'd kept up his end of the bargain and had survived living in the dorms for his first year at college, so his dad had agreed to let him move back in until his course was complete. 

He didn't have a car yet, but Dad worked in Seattle anyway so he was going to ride in with him for a while. Dad had offered to buy him a membership so he could go to the gym with him in the mornings, but John had just laughed and said no way. They were going to figure out a new morning routine that worked for the both of them.

His suitcase was half filled with laundry, but instead of sorting it all out he just grabbed everything and walked it downstairs to dump it all straight into the washing machine. 

"John?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"You need to press the correct sequence of buttons to start the machine, remember?"

"I was going to!" John called back. "Jeez, I was just looking for the detergent."

"On the shelf where it's been for the last nineteen years."

"I'm doing it!"

John rolled his eyes and turned back around to the washing machine with a sigh. He dumped in a capful of detergent and slammed the door closed, before scanning over all the washing options. There was no way he was going to bother with picking out a proper cycle - especially because he'd just thrown everything in together - so he just set it to run a standard, cold water wash. 

He wandered back out into the kitchen and sat down at the table, because there was a pizza sitting there waiting to be eaten. He'd called in the order when they were on their way home from the airport but neither of them had been expecting the delivery to be so fast on a Saturday night. 

John stood up again to collect them a can of soda each as Dad set out two plates. 

"Thanks," he said, reaching out to take the first slice. "For the whole trip, I mean. It was super neat to go and see everyone."

"Well you know how long it's been since I last took a vacation."

"Yeah, it's been forever. It was cool, though."

"You think?"

"Yeah. You know Dave's like my best bro friend and I think it's way cooler to have my best bro friend be like my best bro for real instead of just some random dude that I don't know," John explained. "And Rose, I guess."

"She's a nice enough girl," Dad said. He opened the soda in front of him and pushed it across to John, then opened the second can for himself. "You don't like her?"

"No, I like her!" John said quickly. "She's just this kind of scary person because she's so intense all the time. Like, she is never not being intense and it's scary that she can do that."

"But you like her?"

"Yeah, she's one of my best friends. The intense-est of my best friends," he explained, before finally biting into the slice he'd been holding for so long the corner was already cold. "It was _really_ cool to see Roxy's house."

"It was," Dad chuckled. "I think we'll have to go back sooner rather than later."

"Thanksgiving!" John shouted through a mouthful of half-chewed pizza. "It can't be for Christmas because we have to have Christmas here like we did last year, because that was awesome."

"I agree. As for Thanksgiving, we'll see. It's a lot of money to fly so many people around."

"Yeah, yeah."

"And we also have to factor in the trip to San Diego in December," Dad pointed out.

"Yeah. Did you know that's Dave's birthday? And it'll be Rose's, too!"

"And I'm sure we'll all celebrate appropriately. Would you like anything for dessert tonight?"

"But I'm still eating dinner?"

"Should we go out and get ice cream?"

"Are you okay?" John asked quizzically. "We never _buy_ dessert."

"This is my last night of vacation, John. Tomorrow I have to get organised to go back to work and I can assure you, the office is probably in a complete shambles because I've been gone for so long," his dad said. "It could very well be another five years before I get another vacation like this."

John just chewed the rest of his slice thoughtfully. 

"Can I get a ridiculous and over the top sundae for absolutely no reason whatsoever that definitely isn't going to be any kind of joke set up?"

"No, for more than one reason."

"Aw, okay," John said. "But also, that seems like a good call?"

"I thought so," Dad said with a laugh. "But now that I mention it, bring two epipens just in case."

" _Dad_ , it's ice cream."

" _John_ , it's high schoolers in charge of sanitation."

John pulled a face, but he knew that his dad's decisions always had everyone's best interests at heart. 

They were home again, just the two of them. But for the first time in a very long time, it felt like something was missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the office was not in shambles. dad's boss has been trying to get him to take a vacation for at least six years.)


	3. [I20]: Mud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we spend time with a boy and his dog.

**February, 1988**

"Oof! Slow down, Halley you big oaf!"

Jake dropped to his knees to wrestle the tennis ball out of his dog's mouth. Halley wasn't prepared to give up the toy easily, so Jake twisted and wrapped one arm around his neck and used the other to pry the neon green ball from in between teeth that could do a lot of damage to his hand if he wasn't careful. 

"Haha, got it! Now, fetch this one!" 

Without getting up from the ground, Jake threw the tennis ball across the park again and laughed out loud when Halley skidded across the wet grass. He could feel his knees sinking into the mud but he was already soaked and covered in grass stains, so what was a little extra muck?

It took the dog less than thirty seconds to locate the ball and run at full speed back to his master; the force of Halley crashing into him was enough to send Jake backwards onto the drenched grass. 

"Alright, alright, I think that's enough for today. Mum's not about to let either of us back into the house like this," Jake laughed, snatching the ball out from between Halley's teeth before reattaching his lead. "Hopefully she doesn't make Dad hose me down again," he added, wiping as much rain as he could from his glasses with the back of his hand. 

All he managed to do was smear mud across his left lens. 

It was a short walk home from the park but despite the rain Jake found himself dawdling. Somehow, even though Halley was really the one leading him back to the house, he managed to turn what should have been a five minute trip into a further twenty minutes. 

Just as he'd feared, his mother was waiting for them just inside the back door.

"I'm not going to ask," she said with a sigh. Jake guessed she'd noticed the mud all through his hair. "Dog in the doghouse, you in the bath. You can give him one later."

Jake nodded sheepishly and unlatched Halley's lead, letting him dart across the backyard to his kennel before stepping in out of the rain. He kicked his trainers off first then peeled his socks from his feet and dropped them just inside the door. When he tried to step further into the house, his mother reached up and took his glasses straight off his nose. 

"I'll get them cleaned up," she said. "Bath. Nowhere else first."

"Yes, Mum," he grinned, tiptoeing through the house and down the hall to the bathroom. 

He'd known as soon as he left the house an hour earlier that there was no way he was making it back clean. Dirt and grime somehow just gravitated to him and, as far as he was concerned, there was no way to avoid getting all over himself. 

He bunched up his muddy clothes and threw them into the corner of the bathroom, laughing at his reflection in the mirror. He sat down in the empty tub and poured jugfuls of hot water over himself to clear away as much dirt from his legs and hair as he could, before finally plugging up the bath and letting it fill. 

"Jake? Are you done in there? It's been nearly an hour."

"Almost!"

He'd been so preoccupied with acting out the great battle between shampoo bottles that he hadn't even washed his hair.

He quickly finished cleaning himself and climbed out of the tub, slowly realising that he'd been covered in more mud than he thought, if the colour of the water was anything to go by. 

When he finally sat down at the kitchen table in a clean pair of tracksuit pants and an old t-shirt, his mum pushed a mug of overly sweetened tea into his hands. 

"You had a phone call while you were out."

"Who was it?" Jake asked, reaching over to snatch up three chocolate digestives from the open packet. 

"I think it was that lass you did your last history assignment with," his mum said. "She wanted to know if you were free tonight."

"But we finished that poster last week," he replied, spitting biscuit crumbs onto the table. "I wonder why she rang?"

"I took her number so you can call her back when you're done here."

"No, it's probably nothing, I'll just ask her on Monday," Jake shrugged. He shoved the remaining biscuits into his mouth and took a final slurp of his tea before getting back up from the table. "I'll give Halley a bath now and then he should be dry by tonight."

"Are you sure you don't want to ring her back?" 

"Yeah, it can't be important. I already told you we finished that assignment last week!"

+++

"Jake, the phone's ringing!"

"Dad, the phone's ringing!"

"Jake, the phone's ringing!"

"I know, I just told you," Jake said, looking puzzledly up at his father from where he was lying on the lounge room floor. "Because mum told me, and because I can hear it ringing."

"Well, answer it then and I'll stop telling you it's ringing."

"Why can't Mum answer it? She's still in the kitchen anyway," he suggested. 

"Because Mum's got her hands full with the washing up, so one of you two answer it, would you?"

"But _EastEnders_ is just starting!"

"Jake!"

"Alright, alright, I'm getting it," Jake said, clambering to his feet. Halley, who he'd been using as a pillow, followed close behind. "Hello?" 

"Who is it?"

"Elizabeth, from school," he told his mother. "Hi," he said back into the phone, cradling it on his shoulder so he could use both hands to lift himself up onto the counter. "No, Mum said you rang, but Halley needed a bath because he's a giant beast and unfortunately happens to be a white dog who loves mud, so I was just going to ask on Monday. Huh? No, I'm busy tonight, why? Oh. Oh, no, you know me and how I hate parties. Yes, even ones with bonfires. Because I've got my own backyard I can set on fire whenever I want. Okay, yes, see you Monday then," Jake said. 

He leant over and hung the phone back up on the receiver. 

"Was she inviting you out to a party then?"

"Yeah."

"You could have gone, it's only just after tea," his mum said. "Dad would have picked you up."

"But _EastEnders_ is on and besides, I've got a lot of reading to do tonight," Jake said, leaning forward to scratch at Halley's ears. "Can I have a slice of that pineapple cake?"

+++

"Knock knock, can I come in?"

"Yeah, why not?"

When Jake heard his mother call out from the other side of his bedroom door, he leant over the edge of his bed in an attempt to reach his tape deck without moving; his arms weren't quite long enough and in the end he just got up to press stop on the cassette player. 

"What're you listening to?"

"The new _Pogues_ tape, I picked it up after school yesterday. Is it too loud?"

"No, we can't hear it downstairs. I just thought you might want a hot drink, it's miserable outside," his mum said, sitting down on the edge of his bed to hand over the mug she was carrying. 

Jake dropped back down onto his bed and leant up against the wall; Halley whined and moved as well, so he could rest his head back into Jake's lap again. 

"Thanks," he said, taking the hot cup of Horlicks. "I'm just trying to catch up on _Wonder Woman_ but I think I missed an issue," he explained with a frown. 

"And this is why you decided not to go to that party?"

"Mmhmm," Jake said. "Well, that and I had no reason to go, really." 

"It seems like that girl from your class really wanted you to go along."

"Oh, rubbish."

"Why else do you think she would have rung you up?"

"I don't know, to be nice?"

"It seems to me like she was trying to be a little more than just nice," his mum said with a laugh. "It seems more like she fancies you."

"Oh, pshaw, you're full of it, Mum," he grinned. "I think I'd notice if someone fancied me."

"We'll see about that. Are you just planning on staying up here for the rest of the night?"

"Quite possibly," Jake said. "I'll bring the mug down when I take this giant beast out in a bit," he added, scratching Halley behind the ears. 

"Just pop it in the sink. I'll leave you to it then, shall I?"

"Yeah, thanks," he said, beaming at his mother as she walked out of his bedroom, swinging the door closed behind her. "Okay, where were we?" Jake asked. 

He got up again and plonked the mug, already half empty, down on his bedside table. When he flopped back onto his bed, he settled with his head resting on Halley's side and held his comic up above his face, flipping through the pages to try and figure out where he'd left off a few minutes earlier. 

"Found it!" Jake exclaimed. "This is much more exciting than a party, isn't it, old boy?"

Halley just yawned.


	4. [A6.1A3]: they're a medical device

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are shenanigans of all kinds.

**October, 2015**

When the summer was over and it was time for college to resume, Aradia had moved all of her boxed up possessions out of Sollux's living room and back into the dorms. She'd thought about staying in the Captor's apartment throughout the school year, but she didn't want to step on any toes and Mituna was already sick of her after just a few months. 

Besides, NYU had less restrictions on their internet than Sollux did. 

Despite all that, she visited often and still slept over once or twice a week. The space was good for him, she thought. He needed a lot more downtime than she did, just to get by, and she was more than content to just message him from afar. 

It was, however, unusual to go more than a few hours without hearing from him in one way or another. He would go hours without responding to messages on his bad days, or when he was so focused on a single line of programming that he never even heard the phone ring. When she'd left early that morning, after making sure that he was awake enough to eat the slice of toast she'd made for him, he was still in bed. The chances were high that he'd just gone back to sleep like always; she'd woken up twice during the night and both times he was sitting beside her, awake, with his noise cancelling headphones on to avoid waking her. 

She had a feeling that something was wrong; there was something telling her that things had gone very wrong. When her ancient history class was over, she immediately shoved everything back into her bag and hurried to the nearest subway station. 

By the time she was at the interchange, she still hadn't heard anything from him. 

It was a strange thing for her to feel as panicked as she did. With a block to go until his building, she broke out into a run, inexplicably fearing the worst. 

"Sollux!" Aradia called, banging on the door with her free hand while the other searched her bag for her keys. "Sollux, open up!"

She missed the lock twice in her hurry to get inside. When she finally unlocked the front door to the apartment, she half fell into the living room; she didn't know yet what the worst was, but she was prepared to see it right in front of her. 

The apartment was silent. 

"Sollux?" Aradia said, her eyes scanning the room. Everything seemed to be exactly like it always was. "Tuna?"

Nothing. 

She dropped her bag onto the rug and checked her phone again. 

Still nothing. 

Then, when she looked up, she noticed the open notebook lying on the kitchen counter. 

A single sentence, hurriedly written in Sollux's near illegible handwriting, was scrawled across the page. 

hey aa, iin prii2on. call kk for iinfo.

+++

Since she was very young, Rose had understood that her mother was a highly intelligent woman. She had been taught that it was important to know things, sometimes even just for the sake of knowing them, by two of the brightest people she'd ever known. While Dirk was smart, with a brain finely tuned for details and figures, her mother was almost in a class of her own.

Rose knew that despite Roxy's brainpower, her long standing academic history, and her reputation, at least two thirds of the lecture hall full of undergraduates had already made up their minds about her. The class hadn't started when Rose slipped into an empty seat at the back of the theatre. Her mother was sitting in the front row, chatting to the man who was no doubt the classes' regular professor. 

It was strange to watch her from a distance. Roxy laughed as she spoke, periodically reaching up to check her hair or an earring. The professor checked his watch and then stood up, leaving Roxy to glance at her phone as he got the class started. He said a few things that were not at all relevant to Rose, so she waited, impatiently, for him to get to the point. 

There was no fuss when Roxy stood up. She had dressed down for the occasion, and stood in front of the lecture hall in cropped pants and a business shirt, as well as what Rose recognised to be her lucky heels. 

She spoke casually in the beginning, leaning forward with her elbows on the lectern as she introduced herself, her qualifications, and her areas of research. She took a few questions about her job and her employers, but quickly moved on to her first slide. 

She was aware that she didn't know much about her mother's area of study, but when Roxy started talking, Rose realised just how little she knew. 

There was no way she would ever be able to interpret the complex formulas that her mother knew inside out. Roxy spoke clearly and took questions where she could, asking others to hold out for a few minutes until she got to a more relevant part of her lecture. Rose took a short video to Snapchat to Dave, knowing that he'd considered making the trip to Princeton just to see one of his mom's lectures. There was an equation on the screen, and Rose had no idea what it was even trying to achieve, let alone where to start trying to solve it. 

Roxy spoke for just over an hour before reaching the end of her talk. The professor stood up again, thanking her for her time, and reminding everyone that she was presenting her latest research at a special event that evening. Rose stayed in her seat as the theatre emptied around her, a hundred or so upperclassmen leaving all at once through the doors at the rear of the room. A few stayed behind to ask further questions and Roxy was more than willing to answer them, going so far as to bring up her slides again to go over a formula or two. 

"Excuse me, Ms Lalonde?"

"Yes? Go on, I'm just packing up but I am listening!"

"I'd like you to just go over something for me, if you could. What do you mean by a particle?"

Roxy's head snapped up from her laptop bag, a handful of loose papers ending up trapped halfway back into place. 

"Oh, hun, give me a heart attack next time!" Roxy exclaimed. She finished shoving her notes into her bag and reached out to hug Rose, pulling her in tightly and planting a handful of kisses on her head. "I thought that was genuine and I was wondering how someone would manage to get to this point and need to ask the question."

"Money talks," Rose replied, inhaling deeply; her mother's perfume was familiar and comforting.

"How was I?"

"I didn't understand a word."

"Excellent. Are you busy?" Roxy asked. She gave Rose's cheek a final kiss then finally let her step back out of the embrace. 

"Not too busy for a late lunch," Rose replied. 

While that wasn't entirely true, none of her professors were particularly good at monitoring attendance. 

"Okay, good, because after that Momma needs sustenance in the form of fries and or onion rings, and I only say or as a formality," Roxy said, shouldering her bag. "Let's go."

"Have you got a car?"

"I do, I drove down."

"Oh thank god, the shitbox doesn't like carting two people around," Rose said. "At least, not anywhere in the vicinity of an incline."

"I've changed my mind, fuck the onion rings. Let's go to Wendy's, I want a chicken sandwich," Roxy said. "I've got to be back here by six for the six thirty talk, so that gives us what, three hours?"

"About that."

"Perfect. Have you heard if Dave's coming tonight?"

"I sent him a Snapchat earlier," Rose said, pulling her phone back out of her bag. "But in what is probably the world's biggest plot twist, he hasn't checked it yet. Let me try something else."

\--tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 15:37--

TT: I was going to make a wise crack about you not checking Snapchat for an entire five minutes, but then I got to thinking.  
TT: Have you been grievously injured?  
TT: Hm. It seems to be worse than I thought. Unless, perhaps, you have a headache, or are sleeping off the effects of ingesting far too much codeine.  
TT: If your liver has imploded, you can't have mine.

It wasn't until much later on, when they were sitting at Wendy's with their food, that Rose's phone finally beeped. 

TG: firstly  
TG: your liver is probably worse than mine  
TG: so shut up  
TG: secondly  
TG: tell mom i cant make it  
TG: shenanigans are going down  
TG: video her talk for me   
TT: Shenanigans?   
TG: yeah shenanigans  
TG: gotta go  
TG: explain later

"Dave says he can't make it because of, and I quote, 'shenanigans'," she said, returning her phone to the table beside her soda. 

"Well, we both know it's not the last time we'll hear that excuse in our lives," Roxy shrugged. "I still haven't seen _The Martian_ , let's go see that after my lecture."

+++

"So we all know that he's probably been beaten to a pulp by now, right?"

"Absolutely."

Both Dave and Karkat turned their heads to stare at Aradia; they hadn't been expecting her to agree with them so quickly. 

"What? You've met him," she said, smiling as she jumped the last step down from the bus. "I think they've got him on his own though," she added. "At least, when he's not eating, or in the bathroom, or. Hmm. No, it's almost definite." 

It had been three days since Karkat had first heard what was happening. 

He'd been in a class when his phone had started buzzing in his pocket. Figuring that the alerts were from Dave - no one else was so persistent in trying to get his attention - he'd ignored the device for the remainder of the hour. When he finally got the chance to check his phone, he found three calls, twelve texts, and an entire Pesterlog, all from Sollux.

He wasn't at all surprised by the content of the messages; he'd known Sollux for long enough that it all seemed so routine. They'd been through elementary school together, had spent time at the same various middle and high schools despite the multiple transfers they'd both been forced to make over the years. He was called in as a primary witness during Sollux's first trial, and again multiple times after that; in return, Sollux had been dragged through as a support person when he'd been made to take anger management in order to be allowed back into school. 

Despite everything, this was the first time Sollux had actually been locked up.

"We're here to visit Sollux Captor," Aradia said brightly. "We think he's here but we're not sure."

Rikers Island was a lot bigger than they'd been expecting; they'd been following signs around for almost half an hour before locating the facility they were after. 

"And who are you?" 

"Girlfriend, best friend, best friend's best friend," she said, pointing to them each in turn when the guard asked. "Aradia Megido, Karkat Vantas, and Dave Strider."

"On the list," the guard grunted. He lifted a small plastic crate up onto the counter and thrust it towards Aradia. "Personal possessions including phones, wallets, and all bags. You can collect everything on the way out."

"You gonna survive?" Karkat asked with a snort of laughter as Dave gingerly placed his phone into the box. 

"Shut up," Dave replied.

Neither of them were paying attention to Aradia as she emptied out her purse onto the counter. 

"We're gonna need the sunglasses too, Fonzie," the guard said, nodding in Dave's direction.

"What? No, they're a medical device."

"And this is a federal facility. You blind?"

"Only when there's anything more than sweet mood lighting around, yeah," Dave said with a frown. "You're serious?"

"Again, federal facility. You take 'em off or you wait out here for your buddies."

Karkat glanced over at Dave and saw the familiar panic rising on his otherwise impassive face. They'd been aware that it would probably come down to a decision like this, but Dave had insisted on coming along anyway. He'd said something about hoping they'd let him through with the medical device excuse, but faced with the decision of waiting alone in the reception hall or dealing with the inevitable fallout of his body betraying him, Dave was unable to make the call for himself.

Karkat just watched for a few moments as Dave opened and closed his mouth, unable to commit to a decision. 

He reached back into the plastic crate and unzipped Dave's satchel for him. 

"Trade," he said, holding out a Tylenol 3 and an extra strength pill in one hand and gesturing to the shades with his other. 

Dave begrudgingly reached up and removed his glasses, squinting against the bright artificial lighting of the lobby. He handed over his shades and swiped the two pills from Karkat's open palm. 

"You owe me," he said, blinking repeatedly as his eyes refused to adjust. "No, fucking Sollux owes me, asshole."

"Ma'am, what are those?"

Aradia looked up as innocently as she could when the guard noticed the large pile of things she'd taken out of her purse.

"They're the things he needs," she said. "See, five books, a notepad, a pack of crayons because I wasn't sure if he was allowed to have pencils, and his medication."

"Medication?"

"Yeah. He's got all kinds," she explained. "Let's see. Anti-depressant, anti-psychotic, mood stabiliser, migraine relief - the right kind, not the kind Dave takes for his fake migraines," she explained, pointing out each bottle as she went.

"They're not fake, they're just caused by fucked up eyes rather than fucked up brain wiring," Dave scowled, still looking down at the floor.

"Okay, whatever. There's also allergy pills because he's allergic to some weird kind of dust and then there are these ones for when he's having a complete fucking meltdown. They're awesome," Aradia said. "He's been taking them so far, right?"

"I'll have to check with the pharmacy," the guard said, nervously clearing his throat. "Leave those with me."

"Or not?" Aradia suggested. "He's just staying here, he's not actually in prison. He's allowed to be in charge of his own pills. Call the guys who brought him in, they'll tell you."

"Will they, now? Cops don't have time for this shit."

"Well, no, cops don't. But he's in FBI custody and we all know they follow a completely different set of rules. The only thing he's not allowed to have is access to the internet," Aradia said smugly. "You've got our phones, can we go in now?"

"Holy fucking shit," Karkat muttered as quietly as he could manage. 

"Dude," Dave snorted. "You're _at least_ twice as whipped by Terezi as Sollux is by her, so I don't know why you're even pretending to be surprised here."

Karkat punched him in the upper arm right before they cleared the metal detectors. 

Over the years, he'd witnessed every side of Sollux. He'd been there for all the ups and downs, regardless of how extreme the swings were. It had started back in the third grade, around the same time as Mituna's accident. There was nothing too unusual at first, just countless absences from school when Sollux had learnt that adults had no time to argue with him when Mituna needed constant attention.

Things had rapidly snowballed from there. 

The lows came first. The highs came later, in a vicious cycle of irritability fuelled by no urge or need to sleep. By the time they were in middle school, Sollux was at his worst; no one knew how to intervene. 

Karkat had seen it all.

Even so, he wasn't entirely prepared for when Sollux arrived in the visitors room, clad in beige prison scrubs with his glasses hanging from the breast pocket. He dropped into the one empty chair left at the table and slouched so far forwards that his head was pressed against the metallic surface. 

"Nice outfit," Karkat sniggered. 

Sollux managed to find enough energy to flip him off. 

"They didn't want me to stand out," he mumbled. "I'm not even under arrest. They just don't have anywhere else to put me."

"So what did you do this time?" Dave asked. 

Karkat watched as Dave put his head down on the table as well, raising one arm to use as a shield against the fluorescent lights. 

"Nothing," Sollux said flatly.

"No, really," Dave pressed. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. Some asshole copied my code so my fucking fingerprints are all over it."

"Over what?"

"The breach. Can't say what breach."

"What are they gonna do, put you in prison?" Dave asked. "I mean, you're already here, you've got the clothes. And besides, you're white so they'll treat you okay. You don't even have any neck tattoos, it'll be rad," he went on. 

"Shut the fuck up," Karkat said. 

Dave rolled his eyes and made a blabbing motion with his left hand; Aradia giggled. 

"How long are they keeping you here?"

"Until they track down the motherfucker who's trying to set me up to take the fall, fuck," Sollux said, turning his head to look over at Aradia. "Which would be a lot fucking easier if they let me help but no, no one thought of that. I was working on it the other day when they confiscated my shit. I think the guy is in Russia."

"Why?"

"Because that's how far I've tracked him back. It could just be another misdirect but I don't think it is," Sollux said. He finally lifted his head up from the table and slipped his glasses on so he could see. "Why are all three of you here?"

"Because we all love you," Aradia said with a smile. 

"That's bullshit, KK's only here to laugh and Dave's only here because he needs full time supervision."

"Not true, I'm even allowed to fly to California on my own," Dave piped up.

"Yeah, KK puts you on the plane and your dad picks you up."

"So? It's like a six hour flight."

They ended up staying for hours. In retrospect, it was easy enough for Karkat to see how things had ended up the way they had, but it didn't help explain the strange feeling that Sollux was being set up. 

They had always called him an asset. He was an integral part of plans yet unknown to anyone outside of D.C., and those plans would inevitably lead to more trouble down the line. On paper, he was a textbook cyber pest, someone with the ability to circumvent almost any digital barrier and who had access to so much more information than even the FBI knew. But he was an asset. They needed him. 

His status as a pest was his only saving grace. 

They knew it was time to go when Sollux started to get visibly agitated. His responses grew short, direct, and he wouldn't stop scratching at the same spot in the crook of his elbow. Aradia seemed to have noticed as well, he realised, as she reached out to take Sollux's hand as a distraction. 

"We should go, right?" Aradia asked.

"Yeah. Sorry," Sollux said. "I'll call you."

They said goodbye after that. It was a quiet ride back into Manhattan on the subway, all three of them unsure of which direction to steer a conversation. The boys changed trains on Lexington, leaving Aradia and her incongruous smile behind.

Dave unlocked his dorm room door and left a trail of his belongings between the entry and where he ended up face down on his bed.

"You okay?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. 

Karkat knew that the hours of endless light exposure were going to take a toll on Dave. Dave knew it as well, but neither of them had any idea just how big the toll would be. The preventative medication seemed to have staved off the worst of it all, but it was going to be a long night. 

It didn't take him long to adapt to the darkness of the room. On good days, Dave would crack the blind open an inch or two, but for the most part he lived in a world lit just well enough to prevent tripping. That had never changed and probably never would, so Karkat was the one forced to adapt. It wasn't so bad. It wasn't like he ever bothered trying to study whenever was over. 

"'M gonna go sit in the bathroom a while," Dave said, rolling back off his bed. "You wanna know if I blow chunks?"

"I'll hear it," Karkat replied distastefully. 

Sure enough, Dave barely made it into the bathroom before he was sick. 

Karkat rolled his eyes and stood up to swing the door closed for him, because privacy was probably the last thing on Dave's mind anymore. 

"Thanks!" 

"I'm turning the lights on, so tell me when you're done," Karkat said, through the door. 

"Okay."

He sat down at Dave's desk and switched on three different lamps to help brighten the dorm room, but not before logging into the desktop. He pulled up Spotify and hit play on whatever Dave had been listening to last, which turned out to be a variety of weird 80s covers. He didn't care what he was listening to, as long as it was enough to drown out the sounds of the vomiting coming from the bathroom. 

He couldn't shake the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

When he slipped his phone from his jeans pocket, he turned off all but one of the lamps and walked out into the hallway. He pulled the door closed behind him. 

"I miss you," he said, as soon as the call connected.

"Gay." 

Karkat smiled sadly, closing his eyes in the hopes of drowning out the world, even just for a minute or two. 

"Did you _really_ call me just to tell me that?"

"Yeah," he said with a short laugh. "That's pretty much it." 

"Are you okay?" Terezi asked; he could hear the vaguest concern in her voice, as if she was still expecting him to start talking about something else. 

"Yeah. I just, I really fucking miss you." 

"You watched _The Notebook_ again, didn't you?"

"No," he said indignantly. "Do you have time to talk?"

+++

He didn't know what it was the woke him up first. It could have been his phone, vibrating silently from under his pillow, or it could have been Karkat's shoulder blade digging into his own as he shifted in his sleep. 

When he thought about it, it was probably the urgent knocking on his front door.

Dave sat up on the edge of his bed, giving his head a minute to adjust to the fact he was upright before he even tried standing; he was groggy and everything felt unusually heavy, as if someone had turned the gravity up too high. He had no idea what time it was, but he knew he'd been woken up while his medication concentrations were at their highest. 

He knew what too much codeine felt like. 

Dave stumbled over to the door and unlocked it, cracking it open just enough to see who was knocking so loudly from the other side. 

His stomach dropped.

"Whatcha doing, baby?" 

Dave let the door swing wide open as his mother threw her arms around him and littered his aching head with kisses. He was at least grateful for the support. 

His mom was there. His mom was standing in his doorway, hugging his head to her chest, in New York City. 

He didn't know what to do. 

"Hi, Mom," he mumbled, leaning all of his weight against her. "What time is it?"

"Just after six," she replied, stepping back to look at him. "You were asleep."

"Sure as shit was." 

"So should we keep yammering on in the doorway or can I come in?"

"You can, but I can't promise it'll be a good experience," Dave said, swaying a little as he turned around. 

He still had no idea what to do. His brain was processing everything at half-speed because of all the codeine coursing through his system, and all he could think about was how tired he was and how much he wanted to go back to sleep. 

Don't let Mom know. The thought was there, nagging somewhere in the back of his mind. Don't let Mom know or she'll crumple and relapse and it'll all be your fault. Think faster, he thought. You need to think faster.

His hand folded over the edge of his desk when he leant back against it to help steady himself. Luckily, Roxy's examination of his dorm room was taking long enough that he had some time to figure out what to do next. 

"So why're you here?"

It was an obvious question, but a slightly less obvious stalling tactic. 

"Is he asleep?" Roxy asked, pointing at Karkat's curled up form pressed against the wall. 

"Probably, or he's pretending to be."

"You didn't come and see any of my lectures, and I have to go home via the office so I thought I'd drop in and surprise you," Roxy explained. "But if you're _far_ too busy napping to spend time with your mom, that's totally understandable. I mean, everyone loves naps, right?"

"Yeah, there were shenanigans happening, I told Rose that," Dave said, leaning more of his weight on the table; if he sat down now, he probably wouldn't get up again. 

He hoped he wasn't slurring. 

"So I heard. Must've been some good shenanigans," Roxy said, peering into the bathroom. 

"Sollux is in prison, they're thinking about charging him as some kind of cyberterrorist but they're still debating it, so he's on Rikers while they decide," Dave explained. 

"He's _where_?"

"Rikers. Like, they want to charge him, but if they charge him then they can't hire him when he graduates because he's been charged with a federal offence. It's a whole thing, you know?" 

"Okay, so back in normal people world, it's almost dinner time. You want to go out?"

It was a hard call. 

"Yeah," he said eventually. "Let me get changed." 

For all the shit people gave him over being too clingy for someone his age, it came in handy every once in awhile. When Roxy looped her arm around his shoulders, he leant into her and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Left, then right, then left again. Repeat. There was a tune running through his head but he couldn't place it, couldn't concentrate well enough to pinpoint who the music was by or what any of the accompanying lyrics were. 

One foot in front of the other. That was all he had to do. 

They stopped at the corner a block up from his dorm building to wait for the lights to change.

"So you're completely fucked up right now, aren't you?" Roxy asked suddenly. 

Dave realised he'd been resting his full weight against her as they stood on the edge of the curb. 

"Rude," he mumbled. "Just because I go to art school doesn't mean I sit around all day smoking weed, Mom, jeez," he tried to laugh. 

"Just on weekends, huh?"

"Nah, I don't like it. Makes me paranoid and I don't need more of that in my life."

"Baby, let me tell you now. I know what a teenage Strider looks like stoned," Roxy said. 

Dave followed her lead as they crossed the road. He was still concentrating on not stumbling over his own feet. 

"How would you know?"

"Oh, please," she laughed. "C'mon, baby, it's not like you to lie about this shit." 

She was right. But in her being right, Dave realised that he didn't have anything to lie about, not this time. Lies of omission, sure, but he'd built his entire personality on those because they didn't count, especially not when you told them to your mother. That was just a thing everyone did; white lies never seriously hurt anyone.

He started from the beginning, mumbling parts of the story as they walked down another block and rounded a corner to get to the Vietnamese restaurant Roxy had Googled earlier that afternoon. 

She ordered for him. 

He explained how Sollux had probably been framed, how they'd been banned from visiting him for the first few days by unknown government forces. It was just in case, they'd been told. Roxy prompted him to go on more than once, in between him yawning loudly and leaning against the wall beside their table to help prop himself up. Dave went on, recalling the story in a slightly jumbled order but always making his way back to the point before he strayed too far. When he got to the part where he'd been made to take off his glasses in order to get into the visiting room, Roxy's whole expression softened. 

"Why didn't you just say you had a headache?"

"Because being awake while you're all fucked up is super hard, Mom. Super hard. Did I order anything?"

"I ordered for you five minutes ago, baby," she said with a small smile. "What did you take for it?"

"For my food?"

"For the headache."

"A four," he said. 

"Well that explains whatever all this is," she said, waving a hand to gesture at her son.

"Yeah," he muttered. 

Lies of omission didn't count; he'd just neglected to mention what he'd taken before they went in to visit Sollux, and the other few pills he'd taken since. 

"So how about we eat and then instead of me dragging you out and about, because let's face it, I don't get down here anywhere _near_ as often as I should, we just go back to your room and watch a movie?"

"That sounds good," Dave said, giving her a weak grin. "Nothing soppy, Karkat will wake up and start crying over it," he added with a small laugh. "Fuckin' idiot." 

It was hard to lie to his mom. It was always hard to lie to her, even when they didn't even count as lies. But he'd been doing it more and more lately, both for himself and for Rose - so many lies for Rose - that the regret was almost enough to make him spill everything then and there. He didn't like lying to his mom because she'd never lied to him, not about the important things. 

During his senior year, back when she'd been at her worst, she'd told him everything. Little by little, she'd told him what he needed to know. Of course, he'd known most of it already just by spending an entire lifetime living with her, but to hear her admit to her problems, to knowing what was wrong but not how to stop it, was hard to deal with. 

But while she was doing better - and had been sober for over a year - her kids were getting worse and she had no idea that it was happening. 

Don't tell Mom; she had enough to deal with. They were old enough to figure out the answers to their own problems. Most days, he won. Rose didn't, but they were working on it, together. As long as their mom didn't get dragged into everything, everything would remain fine. 

"Davey, your food's here," Roxy said. "Wakey, wakey," she added with a gentle laugh. "Please don't tell me you want it all cut up for you."

"Nah, I'm good," he said, opening his eyes again. 

He was tired, and his arms still felt too heavy when he lifted them to start eating, but he knew the brain fog would start to lift soon. It had been an hour since he'd woken up and longer again since he'd taken the medication, so he was adjusting. 

Despite it all, he felt the worst about not being more excited that his mom had stopped in to visit him. He would apologise later. Perhaps not until the next morning, but he was going to take her out for breakfast. He was going to take her somewhere that wasn't a Starbucks or a chain store, and he was going pay for it with his own hard-earned cash. 

The next morning, when they were sitting in a small diner that he'd been to exactly once before, Roxy almost sent hot coffee flying out of her nose when he explained exactly which of his commissions was paying for their eggs.


	5. [I21]: Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we spend time with a boy and his delinquency.

**February, 1988**

Sneaking in through the front door was a huge gamble. He only had two choices and both options had been carefully weighed up in order to figure out the best outcome. 

However, even the best outcome wasn't going to be a fun experience. 

He carefully, slowly, turned his key in the lock as silently as he could manage. It was almost two o'clock Sunday morning, and he hadn't been home since he'd left for school on Friday. There were bound to be consequences; how bad they were depended on which parent caught him first. 

He was grounded either way, not that it would stick. He'd pick up extra chores around the house and get in trouble for taking too long, even though the faucets shone like new and no longer dripped by the time he was done. 

They didn't know what to do with him anymore.

"Where the _hell_ have yo - " 

Dirk froze. He darted across the foyer, in the hopes that putting himself on the higher ground of the staircase would give him some kind of leverage. At the very least, it would give him the head start he needed to make it all the way to safety. 

He hadn't factored any kind of emotion into his equation.

"Well?"

"Out," he replied.

"Out where? It's _Sunday_ , for Christ's sake!"

Dirk went over the events of the past two nights in his mind, trying to quickly establish what the boundaries were for the encounter. His father was already in a bad mood and him sneaking in had only made it worse. He'd given no indication that he wouldn't be home after school on Friday and hadn't made any contact since heading out that morning.

Also, the blood caked to his face and shirt had to be ringing some alarm bells.

"Answer me, you little shit!"

"Party Friday, slept in, hockey, diner, party, and now here," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket as he slouched against the wall. "Same as always."

"Don't get smart with me, you're walking a fine line as it is," his father growled. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

Dirk thought for a moment. He could try to weasel his way out of the situation by giving a phoney apology, or at least by admitting he was in the wrong, but that wasn't his style. 

"My team won," he shrugged. 

He knew better than to provoke his parents, but that had never stopped him before; especially not during the last six months. 

Since his sister had left for college the previous Fall, his buffer was gone. She had been the negotiator, the one to keep the peace as much as possible between him and their parents, and without her there he was spiralling out of control. 

They'd never seen eye to eye. His parents were strict conservatives who wanted nothing to do with the more progressive values their children had adopted. Everything he did was wrong, or shameful to the family name, and so he'd done what all sixteen year olds do - he'd stopped caring. 

It was him against his parents, fighting an endless battle. 

He only had to survive two and a half more years. 

His flagrant disregard for the intent of his father's question had had the desired impact. He could see the gears turning, the genuine self restraint that was the only thing saving him from a backhand across the cheek. It wouldn't have been the first time, or the last, but he was already bleeding and they both knew there was no point. 

"Get out of my sight."

He waited, counting to five in his head before moving, just so it momentarily looked like he was going to disobey the order before pushing his shoulder off the wall and turning around to continue up the stairs.

Dirk dropped his bag onto the floor of his bedroom, knowing that the backpack weighed at least fifteen pounds because of his skates. He flicked up the lock on his door and peeled off his jacket then pulled his blood-stained t-shirt up over his head; he wiped his face on it before throwing it into his hamper.

He snapped his head around when he heard the clatter of a fistful of gravel hitting his window.

He listened for a moment, to make sure there were no footsteps stalking past outside his bedroom door, then unlatched the window and slowly slid it up and locked it into place. 

"Ya got busted, huh?"

"Yeah. Go home, Peixies," he said, as loudly as seemed safe. "Meet you at yours later."

She gave him a thumbs up and bolted across the yard, away from the downstairs lights before she was caught like he had been. He watched as she climbed up the fence and jumped over, flashing him a grin before she disappeared. 

He hadn't bothered turning the lights on because it was the middle of the night; him being awake at four in the morning was something the neighbours would inevitably mention to his parents. He crouched down beside his backpack and pushed his belongings aside until he found the zipper to the inside pocket; however, it wasn't the pocket he was after as much as the access point. 

He'd modified the backpack in the Home Ec room after school one day, had unpicked the fabric from the zipper so he had a second pocket, one hidden in the lining. 

It was below freezing outside, but that didn't matter. He knelt on the bench with his elbows resting on the window ledge, his slowly numbing fingers struggling to hold the lighter properly. The little flame sparked to life on the sixth try, and Dirk stuck his head further out the window to light the joint he'd had tucked away in his backpack for days.

+++

Dirk realised, all at once, that he'd made a series of fatal errors. When he woke up, it was involuntarily, the incessant beeping of his digital alarm clock loud enough to get to him despite the professional-standard headphones clamped down over his ears. 

He'd never turned off his alarm on Friday. It was six o'clock on Sunday morning and he was awake, again, after sleeping for what could only have been an hour at most. Reflex kicked in and he shut off the noise before he even registered that his arm had moved. When the alarm fell silent, he noticed that he could hear the faint white noise of a needle running through the lock groove. 

He only vaguely remembered putting on the Ice-T record earlier. 

When he sat up, he swung his legs over the edge of his bed and pulled his headphones down to rest around his neck. It was freezing inside; he'd forgotten to close the window all the way the night before, so there was a light dusting of snow on his windowsill. 

Even though it was just six in the morning, Dirk knew he had to make a decision and it had to be done quickly. He stood up and pulled his headphones off completely, tossing them back down onto the bed as he stood up. He lifted the needle and switched off his record player before changing out of the jeans he'd been wearing for three days and into a clean pair from his closet. Long sleeves, Beastie Boys t-shirt, denim jacket, then finally his winter coat went on as well. 

He emptied his backpack one thing at a time, leaving behind all of his hockey gear because he wouldn't need it on a Sunday. He replaced his skates and unworn spare shirts with a handful of cassettes and a half-functional circuit board, as well as his small toolkit and box of electronics components. 

Just in case, he tied the laces of his skates together and slung them over his shoulder before silently leaving his bedroom.

He wrote a note this time. It didn't say much, but there wasn't much that needed to be said. _Back tonight_ , he scrawled, then stuck the scrap of paper to the fridge door with a magnet his sister had sent home from Princeton. 

There was a Tupperware container filled with leftovers in the fridge, so he took the whole thing and shoved it into the front pocket of his backpack; he hadn't eaten a full meal since Thursday night and leftover meatloaf was better than nothing. 

His parents hadn't been woken up by his alarm clock, so he was able to make a hasty escape without another one of the arguments that he had come to see as inevitable. 

Dirk lit a cigarette as soon as he was out of the house. It was a long walk to the Peixes' place from his neighbourhood, but there was a payphone a few blocks away and Meenah had her own line. He had no idea if she'd be awake, but she had a car and that was all he needed. He had at least six dollars in change in his backpack somewhere, he could afford to keep calling until she answered.

She picked him up on the main road twenty minutes later. 

"What's the damage?" Meenah asked, taking one hand off the wheel to snatch the lit cigarette from his mouth. 

"Minimal," he said, lighting another for himself. "You're missing an earring."

"Aw, fuck me," she said. He watched her barely manage to not singe her hair as she reached up to check which of the large gold hoops had been lost sometime over the past seventy two hours. "So where're we goin', Stride-man?"

"Anywhere," Dirk said. He slouched down in the passenger's seat and put his feet up on the dashboard, cracking the window just far enough to ash his cigarette. "Preferably somewhere glitter-free for a change."

"Can't make no promises," she said, cackling. "Shit's all up on everythin' I touch, I'm like the magical fuckin' Midas puttin' the gold all over the place."

"I'd noticed," he said, rolling his eyes. 

"Aw, cheer up, honey," she said. 

Dirk fought off her one-handed attempt to pinch his cheek with a punch to the upper arm, so she flipped him off as payback before taking a final drag on her stolen cigarette and throwing the butt out her window. 

"Let's go to Buffalo," he said after a momentary silence. "I've got gas money."

"Course ya do."

He had no idea what he wanted to do when they got there, but it was Sunday. It was a Sunday and if he didn't get the time and space away from home that he needed, he wouldn't make it until the next weekend without imploding. 

With the sun rising behind them as they starting driving west, Dirk sunk even further down in his seat and pressed his temple against the glass. 

Just two and a half more years.


	6. [A6.1A4]: flights and fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which multiple characters converge on a singe point for a single reason.

**December, 2015**

It wasn't until they were all in the air, somewhere over Tennessee, that Dave realised he'd never flown with more than one person before. Even then, he hadn't travelled with anyone in years. He'd already wasted far too much time just sitting quietly in his seat; he had a reputation to keep.

He hit pause on the video he was watching on his phone and pulled the buds from his ears, shifting his knees so he could shove the cord into the seat pocket.

Then, without warning, he sprawled himself over Karkat's lap so he could rest his elbows on the aisle armrest. 

"The fuck?!"

"Dude, you're just collateral damage and I'd say I'm sorry but I'm really not," he said. "Hey, Kanaya. Hey," he hissed.

Kanaya sighed dramatically and turned her attention away from the in-flight entertainment screen. 

"Yes, Dave?"

"Tell Rose I wanna talk to her."

"I don't think she wants to talk to you," Kanaya said, glancing over at Rose, who was already shaking her head in anticipation of the request. "Rose, Dave would like to speak with you."

"No," Rose replied sternly.

"Unfortunately, she's far too busy but she'll try to find time to talk to you when we land," Kanaya said, a smile ghosting over her lips as she pushed Rose back against her seat. "So sorry."

"No you're not," Dave said. He lifted one elbow from the armrest and jabbed it sharply into Karkat's side to stop him from fidgeting. 

"You're right, I'm not."

"Rude as fuck. So do you want to at least trade seats with me? I've got the window," he said.

"Take the fucking offer," Karkat snapped. "Please, take the fucking offer, this is without a doubt the worst experience I've ever been subjected to and I had to go to my brothers' high school graduation," he went on. 

Dave elbowed him in the gut again. 

"You plan to continue harassing everyone until you get your way, don't you?"

"Probably," he shrugged. "It's a long flight."

"And you've got the attention span of an Alzheimer's-ridden gnat," Karkat interjected. When he raised his knee as a warning, pressing it hard up into Dave's hip, he felt the elbow shift away from his ribs; there was no way Dave was going to risk taking a knee to the crotch in such a confined space.

"Whatever. So, wanna trade?" Dave asked again. 

Kanaya rolled her eyes and unbuckled her seatbelt.

"You have thirty minutes and then I want my seat back," she said. 

"You're totally my favourite sister," Dave said. He climbed out into the aisle, trying his best not to kick Karkat in the face as he did and only half succeeding. 

"I wake up every day thinking just how lucky I am to have you as a brother," Kanaya said as she stepped aside to let Dave take her place. 

"I know you're being sarcastic," he started, "but I'm gonna take it as at least half genuine." 

"You know," Rose said softly, leaning her head on his shoulder once he'd stopped fidgeting. "I'm surprised you managed to sit quietly for two hours."

"Why?"

"Because you're you," she said. "And because up until the moment we boarded this flight, you were acting as if you were on a delicious cocktail of crack and Adderall."

"Bitch, you know I don't do drugs."

"Unless the bottle has your name on it."

"That's different." 

"Hardly," Rose pointed out. "But the point stands that back at the airport, you were bouncing off the walls like a six year old promised a trip to Disneyland."

"No one's ever promised me a Disneyland trip," he replied, stretching out his right leg into the aisle space. 

"What a sad, sheltered life we must have led. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"The aforementioned inability to stop bouncing your leg while we were waiting to board," Rose said. "And the inability to stop it now," she added; she looped her foot around his left ankle to try and hold it in place. 

"How are you not as excited about this as I am?" Dave asked incredulously. 

"I suppose it's different for me. Quite a bit different, really."

"It's not like we grew up in completely different states or anything, what's the big deal?"

As he asked the question, Dave moved to rest his arm around her shoulders and pressed his cheek against the top of his sister's head. Rose leaned into him and tried her hardest not to say anything as he snapped and unsnapped the clip holding back her bangs. 

"Because despite everything we were led to believe as children, only I'll be gaining an uncle. By the end of the week, you'll be the one with a new stepfather."

+++

It took three tables pushed together to accommodate everyone; there were nine of them in total and two more yet to arrive later in the week. They'd taken fifteen minutes to order and that long again for everyone to get their food, but that was the price they'd paid for heading straight from the airport to the nearest Five Guys. 

When Dave laughed so hard that his coke spilled out of his nose, Dirk could only look on and smile; he couldn't remember ever having the entire family in one place before.

Driving out to the airport to pick everyone up had been an experience in itself. He and Jake had taken separate cars because they had seven people to collect, and since they didn't live out in the middle of nowhere he couldn't just throw all the kids into the back of the truck. Everyone had flown in separately, but they were all scheduled to land within two hours of each other. Roxy's flight was the first to land just after three in the afternoon. The Egberts had landed from Washington half an hour after that. The flight from New York, carrying Dave, Rose, Karkat, and Kanaya, had been delayed and hadn't arrived until almost six. 

By the time everyone had collected their luggage, they were starving. 

"Hey, how was your flight?" Dirk asked, nudging Dave with his elbow. 

"You know, high. Can't take a commercial flight lower than like what, twenty thousand feet or some shit before it just falls out of the sky?" Dave said, mid-mouthful. "I guess you can but it probably would be winning any awards for the greatest or smoothest flights ever or anything, and I mean if you're trying to avoid radar you can. Does that even work anymore with GPS and shit?"

"Dude."

"It was cool, yeah. All good. Karkat screamed like a bitch when we hit turbulence so that was pretty fucking amusing."

"What the hell, you useless garbage disposal? That was you!" Karkat exclaimed.

"Was not. No proof," Dave said, shovelling a handful of fries into his mouth. 

"The proof is do you know how much fucking turbulence you hit in the sixteen hours between here and Karachi? Shut the fuck up."

"See?" Dave said, despite nothing being proven. "Hey, Mom, what's the plan for tonight? Mom? Mom, hey. Mom." 

While Dave was distracted, leaning back in his chair to get Roxy's attention, Dirk stole the remainder of his fries.

Dave's visits had been one thing, even the unanticipated ones. They had the space for him and he was easy enough to accommodate; all he needed was a dark place to crash and access to an endless supply of food and wifi. They didn't, however, have enough space for everyone at the house. Mathematically they did - he'd done the calculations - but it wouldn't have been comfortable for anyone. The plumbing probably wouldn't have been able to keep up, either. 

So Dirk had booked a hotel for everyone instead. Roxy had then cancelled his reservation and made her own booking, refusing to let him cover the costs. It was his event, she'd said. All he had to pay for was the booze. 

That had seemed fair.

He knew that he rest of the night would probably entail driving everyone over to their accommodation then heading to bed early. Dave had been to San Diego before. Roxy had passed through a few times for conferences. The Egberts had only ever been as far south as Anaheim. None of the others had been to California before and would no doubt want to spend the next few days playing tourist.

On top of everything else, it was the infamous Strider-Lalonde birthday week.

Mr. Egbert had originally offered to bake everyone their own cakes but they'd argued him down to three - one for the Striders, one for the Lalondes, and one for the English.

It was Jake's birthday first, in two days time. His own was two days after that, and Roxy was a day after him; the same was true for their kids. 

It was going to be a long, cake-filled week. 

"Okay," Dirk said as he tossed his keys onto the table. "Grown ups get the front seats, everyone else is on their own," he added. "Let's blow this joint."

+++

He had no idea why he was there. It didn't make sense for him to be there. He was the only one there who wasn't family in one way or another. Even John was, through a bizarre series of circumstances, part of the family. There was no way his past self would believe his current situation. 

Said current situation involved him lying face down on the bed closest to the window while Dave and John fought over how the three of them were going to sleep in a two-person hotel room. 

The suggestion had already been made that one of them take the spare bed in Rose and Kanaya's room, but they'd all agreed no one should have to suffer that badly. 

"Look, whatever bro. You sleep on your own," Dave said, finally relenting. He fell backwards onto the bed beside Karkat, who didn't move. 

"Awesome," John said. He beamed as he hoisted his suitcase up onto the empty bed.

Ten minutes to decide on the inevitable arrangement. 

They had the next day to do whatever they wanted, as long as what they wanted didn't interfere with what Dave's mom had planned. They knew what she had organised. Roxy had mentioned earlier - to John's dad, but they'd overheard - that she was taking the kids to get their hair cut. 

Dave had been growing his in protest for months and it was starting to look ridiculous, even by East Coast Art Student standards. His own hair was a wiry rats nest, like always, and Rose's outgrown pixie cut was scruffy, with scraggly ends down the back of her neck. John just obviously needed a cut. 

Kanaya, of course, had had a trim only a week earlier.

Karkat pushed himself up from the mattress and and scowled when Dave tried to knock his supporting arm out from under him. He threw the remote at Dave and stood up to get into the shower before anyone else.

He could hear the other two arguing over which movie to watch as he turned the shower faucet on to drown out their voices. 

It was still unbelievable that he was in California. For some reason he'd been invited along for the otherwise family-only event, with his flight and accommodation paid for by one of Dave's parents. He could only imagine the reaction from his thirteen year old self if he ever travelled back in time; he flushed with embarrassment over the thought of just how big of a shitfit he would have thrown.

The lights had been out for almost an hour when Dave rolled over in his sleep and smacked Karkat in the face.

He breathed in deeply to help quell the urge to hit back. Dave didn't move; he was actually asleep. 

Karkat closed his eyes, again, and tried to sleep. 

If he ever met his past self, the first thing he was going to tell the fucker was that one day he'd be invited to Di-Stri's wedding, just to watch the inevitable shitshow from an outside perspective.


	7. [A6.1A5]: mistakes that had to be made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we end this act with a major family event, the associated afterparty, and a slew of secrets revealed.

**December, 2015**

The steel felt cold against the skin of his finger. 

When he was a teenager, he assumed he'd be long dead by his forty-fourth birthday. He'd spent a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking about just how much he'd hated everything about himself back then. He'd spent years full of self loathing and only in retrospect did he understand that it was all because of circumstance; but had the circumstances been any different, he wouldn't be standing where he was in that moment. 

He'd grown up in a time of panic. He was too young to really remember anything about Vietnam, but had been caught up in the paranoia that came along with the Cold War. He remembered Reagan, and Bush Senior, and all of their policies; politics was something he'd understood better than his parents and could discuss at length by thirteen. After the Challenger exploded he was on edge for months, his faith in machinery shaken. In the same year, when he was only fifteen, he'd accepted that an early death was inevitable. Told over and over by society that someone like him was guaranteed to contract AIDS, the probability of death was never far away. 

It felt like such a cliche but he knew he wasn't the only teenager to ever shut out the world through music. In his case, however, he'd started making it instead of just listening to it and had eventually made enough to get paid for his efforts. 

He'd made some bad choices because he was always convinced that he was destined for an early grave. More than once he'd come close to the end. At his lowest he'd done something that he would spend years thinking was the worst decision of his life. It was a betrayal of self, an act fueled by that same sense of self loathing he'd lived with since the early 80s. 

Maybe, his subconscious had said after too much to drink, just maybe you're not what you say you are. How would you know? He'd slept with her to prove himself wrong, but afterwards he only hated himself more for the doubt he'd planted in his own mind. Fucking her was a mistake, but it was a mistake that had to happen. 

The byproduct of his biggest mistake stood next to him, dressed in the closest thing to a suit he'd ever owned and squinting in the late afternoon sun. In the boy's outstretched palm lay a second steel ring, identical to the first. 

As the steel began to warm, adapting to his body heat, he took the copy from his best man's hand and waited for his next instruction. 

"That's hella nasty," the best man said. 

Dirk ignored his son in favour of doing what he'd been told to do; he kissed Jake again, then once more, because a lifetime of bad choices had led him to eventually making the right one.

+++

He'd come a long way from the boy who lived in comic book worlds and struggled to focus long enough to complete his homework. He was an academic - a respected one at that - and a trained zoologist with a PhD. Halfway across the world from home and preoccupied with adventure, there had never been a time when marriage was something he thought was in his future. At least, not until seven full years after he'd met Dirk. 

It was sudden and unexpected, the realisation that his longest relationship was successful enough to warrant the possibility creeping into his mind. He'd never thought about himself as being actually involved in a healthy relationship. There had been times in the past where he had dated but they all felt obligatory, as if dating was just another thing he had to do to get on with life. Even with Dirk it had felt so routine in the beginning. Get a number, hook up, then spend weeks or months skirting around the details until it all unravelled. His previous record was five months. Five months before the girl he'd been seeing in his third year of university decided for him that his heart wasn't in it. 

Jake had never had patience. He'd never been able to concentrate, or sit still, and every report card he'd ever received said the same thing: get him tested for an attention deficit before he flunks everything. At least with a diagnosis they could give him more time for exams. He'd taken up shooting as a coping strategy - everything had to be done meticulously for the sport to be safe. 

His lack of attention to detail carried over into his personal life as he grew older. He was oblivious to all the usual clues and had to be told more than once that yes, they were dating, by men and women alike. 

When Dirk walked into his life, their relationship was different from the beginning. The distance gave him time alone to process what was happening. He was able to think through what he wanted to say because most of it was done through text. When they were together, it was for short bursts of time in unfamiliar places where he had no other distractions. For the first time in his life, he was able to piece together the relationship for himself and come to the conclusion that it was working. 

He didn't want to ruin it by asking Dirk to live with him full time. When he finally brought it up as an option, it was after months of deliberation. Living together would change the entire dynamic of their relationship. 

But by then, it had been long enough that Dirk knew exactly what he was getting into. He slipped into the routine seamlessly. His meticulous nature meant that he saw what Jake missed and within weeks a new pattern had formed. Things got done before Jake even knew they needed doing. Condiments he'd had in the fridge since before the turn of the century were thrown out and actually replaced. Before he'd even begun to feel crowded in his own house, Dirk had suggested hiring a contractor to finish the attic and turn it into useable space. An unspoken rule was established once they each had their own retreats; closed doors never meant anger, they meant weariness. It worked. It worked far better than Jake had ever thought any of his relationships could.

It was mere formality, they both knew that. Ten years, almost to the hour, after they had first met, Jake carefully signed his name then handed the pen to Dirk.

There was a metallic clink as the pen connected with the ring on his finger.

"Your turn, old chap," he said.

+++

And just like that, it was official. It was excessive as hell because no one needed three dads, Dave realised, as he swapped his phone for his proper camera. A lifetime of thinking he and Rose had sprung from some weird science experiment had been disproven years earlier, but three dads? No one needed that. 

He snapped a few photos of them signing the paperwork, then turned to capture some images of his family while everything wrapped up. 

His mom was sitting with her head on John's dad's shoulder, her eyes glistening as she held back tears of joy; they were holding hands, her knuckles white with just how tight her grasp was on him. She saw Dave looking her way and winked, just as he captured the moment. John and Karkat were sniggering about something; he snapped a shot of Kanaya elbowing Karkat in the ribs to quiet him down. Next to her was Rose. 

His sister looked more put together than he had seen her in months. Her hair, freshly trimmed, was filled with rose buds held in place by what had to be enough bobby pins to make her scalp itch. Every line drawn on her face was perfect; her eyeliner was sharp, her lipstick was contained by a steady application of lip liner, and her highlighter shone in the late afternoon sun. She didn't look tired or worn out like she had almost every time he visited her at Princeton. Admittedly, he usually visited when she needed him the most, at her worst, but to see her happy, smiling, and in control filled him with pride. 

The photo he took of her was the best of the bunch. 

"I'll need you to drive, baby," Roxy said a few minutes later, handing him the keys to Dirk's truck. 

"Why?"

"Because you can drive stick," she said. "Okay kids, listen up! Davey, you're taking your grandparents and Karkat. Rosie, Johnny, and Kanaya, you're with me. Johnny, your dad's gonna be back later with the other two. Is that everyone?"

"Yeah," Dave said, his voice cracking as he did. He coughed as few times as if to clear his throat to cover up the unintended noise. "See ya, Mom," he added. 

He glanced back at Dirk and Jake and took one last photo of them on the deck. They were both facing away from the camera, looking out over the zoo, with their elbows resting on the railing. 

"Are you ready, poppet?"

"Yeah."

Karkat snorted. 

When Dave sat down in the driver's seat, he tipped his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He waited for the other three doors to close before he took his glasses from his breast pocket and slipped them onto his face.

When he opened his eyes, the world was once again tinted the familiar shade of gray. 

He slipped the truck into gear and turned around in his seat as he started backing out of the parking space. 

From the backseat, Jake's parents sat beaming at him. 

They were legitimately his grandparents. It was bizarre to think about because while he was overcompensating in the dad department, he'd spent his entire life with a grandparent deficit. Dirk's parents were never part of their lives. Dave and Rose knew that their parents had had a hard time growing up, and that Dirk had been the one to receive most of the fallout. He probably had some other biological grandparents somewhere, but they had never been part of the equation. 

He'd met them for the first time the day before and they were everything that a lifetime of movies had led him to believe grandparents should be. They'd brought him gifts, asked him about college, and indulged him by listening to him talk about Paul for no less than three hours, on and off. 

He actually felt bad asking them to let him concentrate on driving. The truck was a lot bigger than what he was used to, there was more traffic, and the sun was starting to dip below the skyline which made it hard for his eyes to focus. It wasn't a long drive back home, but the trip was through peak hour traffic. He tried to pitch in on the conversation whenever he pulled up at a red light, but inevitably blocked out the next few minutes when the traffic started to flow again. 

They were the first ones back at the house. He parked the truck in the drive, as far up as it would go, so there was enough room for a second car behind. Dave unlocked the front door with Dirk's keys then hung them up on the first hook above the shoe rack. The second car with his mom and the others in it pulled up a few minutes later. 

Dave looked around the kitchen for any clues about what to do next. He heard the faucet start suddenly, and his head snapped around to see what was happening; Jake's mother - his grandma - was filling the kettle. 

"Well either get everything out or get out of the way," she said with a gentle laugh. "Or do you need instructions?"

"Yeah, that," he replied, starting to reach for some mugs. 

"How's about I show you how to make the perfect cuppa and you show me all those photos you just took, hmm?" Grandma offered. 

"Okay sure. You want sugar, right?" 

"Of course we do, pumpkin. What do you think this is?"

"A hell of a time," Dave mumbled to himself. "So was that rhetorical or what?"

"The sugar, David."

+++

From the minute the wedding had been announced, Rose had been suppressing her fears about attending the party. She was struggling to stay in control and she knew it, and going to an event where underage drinking was going to be the least of anyone's concerns put her in a tough position. She could fight every instinct in her body, leave the house and hope no one noticed she was gone, or fake an illness to explain why she was refusing to participate. Her other option was to hide in plain sight.

Kanaya, endlessly patient and loving Kanaya, was going to cut her off if things started to get out of control. If she just kept up with the others and didn't go overboard, things would be just fine. 

She was lying on the grass staring up at the stars, her half-eaten third slice of pizza on a paper plate resting on her stomach. Rose took another sip of her grape-flavoured Smirnoff Ice - through a curly straw, naturally - and closed her eyes. Her head was spinning, only just, because she'd knocked back three of the pre-mixed drinks before starting on the fourth. 

She was drowning, and too stubborn to call for a lifeboat. 

"Hey, are you eating that?" Dave asked as he dropped down onto the grass beside her, lying on his stomach and propped up on his elbows. 

"You can have it," she replied; he had already picked up the slice of pizza before she could answer. "So where have you been, hmm?" 

"Showing John some shit in Rainbow Six Siege," he said. "He couldn't get one of the trophies so we logged in as him and got it."

"Of course."

"Yeah, have you just been lying out here on the grass like a fucking loser?"

"That is exactly what I've been doing," Rose said, tipping her head to watch Dave wipe the pizza grease off his fingers and onto the grass. "It's so unusual for it to be so warm in December."

"Not in California it's not," he shrugged. He leaned over and took a drink from her straw. 

"There are plenty more of these in the fridge. When I took this one, my dearest uncle told me to ensure I leave some there because he purchased them specially for you," Rose said.

"How's it going anyway?" Dave asked suddenly as he punched out a text. "You know, the whole Mom-circa-my-senior-year thing?"

"How's your suburban-soccer-mom-named-Carol-pill-addiction going?"

"Great, it keeps me out of chronic eyeball pain," he snapped. "You know what I mean."

"I do, and I'm working on it. But for tonight, I blend in with the masses. Cheers?" Rose suggested, shaking her bottle in his direction. 

Dave, drinkless, fistbumped the bottle instead. 

He turned over to lie on his back as well, pressing his left shoulder up against Rose's right. He looped his pinky finger around hers and squeezed. She didn't pull away so he let his hand drop, still holding on, to rest their hands on the grass in the small gap between his hip and her thigh.

"So Karkat's been totally weird since we got here," Dave said a few minutes later. 

"Maybe it's because he's in a place he's never been before, he's the only non-family member at a very exclusive family event, he's still in disbelief that he is so close to his teen idol, should I go on?" Rose said. She tipped her head to take another sip from her straw. 

"Yeah but I meant just weird, you know?" 

"He's also good friends with John, but doesn't spend time with him on account of the entire country being between them for the most part. I imagine it's rather awkward spending time with a friend you've only known online."

"John's like the least weird person I know."

"Yes, but Karkat is weird."

"So?"

"So are you, so it cancels out and you don't notice it."

"Who's weird?"

Rose tilted her head back and smiled up at John, who beamed back down at her in reply. 

"Dave is," she said. "Pull up a patch of grass."

"Duh," John said.

Rose felt him lie down on the grass as well, but on his stomach with his chin resting on the back of his hands. 

"So what are we talking about that's not just Dave being weird because we all know that," John said.

"And he's fucking lazy."

Rose looked up again and saw Karkat standing over them all, carrying all the drinks Dave had evidently texted him to pick up on his way out to the yard. 

She felt Dave staring at her as she unlinked her pinky from his to reach for a new bottle; for one night, she was going to ignore all her problems. 

After all, it was a party.

+++

There was a certain logic behind his decision to force his only son to move out of the house for a year. While it had gone against his every instinct, he'd insisted that a year in a college dorm was an experience everyone needed to go through in their lives. Really, he'd been hoping it would help John to broaden his horizons and give him an opportunity to start acting like a normal, social teenager. 

When the year was up and John's first question was if he could finally get a car, he was resigned to the fact that his son was a force unto himself. 

He knew he'd always been overprotective. His family had suffered early on and he'd clung to what remained of it with a strong grip. When his wife had died, John was only thirteen months old. Her brother and his wife - Jade's parents - had been killed in the same car wreck; they had collided with a panicked moose on the way back from a weekend of hiking. After the accident it was just him and John, alone for years, until he'd offered to have Jade live with them so she could go to school full-time. He'd always tried to be protective but not smothering. Sometimes he'd failed. He knew that, but John was all he had left.

At least, until Roxy came along. 

Her parenting style was entirely different to his, but it worked. Her kids were happy, healthy, and they knew what the boundaries were even if they liked to push them. John had loved her from the beginning. 

So had he. 

He was used to being the one straight man at large events. Every year, at the office Christmas party, his colleagues would be dancing around the floor to carols, singing loudly as they knocked back drink after drink, until they had to call for a taxi to take them home. His idea of joining in had been to wear festive ties throughout December. 

Roxy had snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle. He'd let her press light kisses across his shoulders until he could turn his head enough to kiss her back; she smelled like orange soda, nothing more. He lifted his right arm and she moved to settle in against his side and they stood, together, looking out into the backyard at their kids. 

Roxy's two were quiet. Rose was sitting on the grass with Dave's head resting on her crossed ankles as she braided the hair he'd refused to have cut too short, entwining dandelions and long leaves of grass into the style. John was sitting cross legged, opposite Karkat, with his hands out in front of him in preparation for the slap game. Kanaya was leaning against Rose, back to back.

"I miss them so much," she said. "Even all their bullshit," she added. 

"They're doing just fine," he said reassuringly, nosing her hair aside and pressing a kiss to her temple. "They had a fine example to follow."

"Oh, stop," Roxy said. "Want to come for a drive? I'm about to take Jake's parents back to their hotel."

"Of course. Should we tell them?" He asked, nodding towards the kids. 

"They won't even notice we're gone."

"I'll get the keys."

+++

Stanford, Horace, Quincy, Thaddeus, Milton, Oswald, then Jacob. No, he realised, he couldn't have it in that order. Horace would never stand for being stuck next to Quincy.

"Swap Horace with Milton," he mumbled to himself, examining the shelf through narrowed eyes. "But then Milton is stuck between Stanford and Horace, the poor bastard." 

If there was a solution to the problem in front of him, Jake couldn't see it. 

He'd been sitting on the coffee table since his parents had left with Roxy almost twenty minutes earlier. He picked up his beer and drained it slowly, even though his thoughts only raced faster with every bottle he finished. 

When he felt another bottle nudge his shoulder, he took it without even looking away from the wall - he just removed the cap with his teeth and let it fall onto the carpet. 

"Jake?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you staring at the wall like a fucking madman?"

"I think I'd quite like a dog," he replied. 

"What?"

"I think I might have far too many skulls of the dead and not enough living creatures in this house. It throws off the balance, you know," he said factually.

"What balance?"

"The balance of the living and the dead."

"Is that a thing?"

When Jake finally tore his eyes away from the skull-reorganisation problem in front of him, he slid around the corner of the table so he was sitting opposite Dirk. Dirk, who was still wearing his formal shirt from earlier but now with a pair of basketball shorts instead of trousers, cocked an eyebrow. 

"There are two living beings in this house and we are accompanied day and night by hordes of the dead and the unliving," Jake explained as Dirk put his feet up on the coffee table, one on either side of him. 

"Three living beings," Dirk corrected.

"Two. Your Cal is one of the unliving whether you like it or not. A dog would redistribute the balance a little."

"No way," Dirk shook his head. "Not with all the fur, and the barking, and the shitting everywhere, it's all bullshit with dogs," he said. "Fuckin' weak-ass wolves is what they are."

"Think about it," Jake said as he stood up, moving to step over Dirk's left leg.

"That was me thinking about it," Dirk said, leaning over the arm of the couch to put his glass down on the carpet. "Hey, you know what else I thought about?" 

"What?" 

"Listen," Dirk said, as Jake turned to sit beside him on the couch. 

"For?"

"Nothing. Parents gone, siblings gone, kids outside having some bullshit heart to heart thinking they're the first ones to ever think those things."

Another cocked eyebrow.

"Don't be filthy," Jake replied, reaching for his beer. "Maybe later. Or tomorrow, when we're both anything less than completely smashed."

"Hey, your loss," Dirk shrugged. "Whatever you wanted was on the cards but since that's a no go, I should call Rox and get her to bring back some fuckin' fries."

"You never cease to amaze me," Jake said incredulously as he turned and pressed a lingering kiss to Dirk's jaw. "But since she's already out, have her get me a shake."

+++

"Enlighten me, John. I mean, really enlighten me here. We _are_ almost siblings after all so I really should know the answers to simple questions such as this. Why is it, that after all this time, you have not yet, to anyone's knowledge, fucked your girlfriend?"

John choked on a mouthful of orange soda.

"That's disgusting," Karkat scowled, watching as John spat onto the grass and wiped away the sugary drool with the back of his hand. 

"Just like your face," John shot back.

"No changing the subject now," Rose said, a disturbingly twisted smile on her face that was too close to Dave's cocky grin for comfort. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Answer the question, John."

"Why?"

"Because as the eldest sibling, I deserve to know as much blackmail material as possible about my darling younger brothers."

"That's bullshit," he finally interrupted. "That's like, the least accurate way to describe Dave ever."

"Go fuck yourself," Dave interrupted, his words slurring together. "Both of you."

It had been over half an hour since they'd last seen any of the adults. He recalled Dave's mom saying something about driving somewhere for something, but the details were a little more than hazy. He knew he'd had enough to drink, but so had the others and they weren't ready to call it a night just yet. Except for John. John was probably three drinks behind and completely ready to give up. 

That could have just been because of Rose's question, though. 

At some point, probably when Rose had gone inside to use the bathroom and he'd pissed in the corner of the yard because he didn't want to wait, they'd all shuffled around. Kanaya was perched sideways on a wooden deck chair, her feet hanging over one of the arms; Rose was sitting on the grass nearby, close enough for her to occasionally reach out to stroke her hair. John was sitting upright and leaning back against the fence. 

Karkat had been happy just lying on the grass until Dave decided to throw his legs over his stomach. 

"John!" Rose demanded. "A simple question deserves a simple answer!"

"That's not even a real question, it's dumb," John snipped back. 

"Hardly. All I need to know is why you and Vriska are yet to, as the kids say, bang," she explained. "I know far, _far_ too many of Dave's sordid tales of drunk hook ups and not enough about the lack of yours."

"Rosie, shut up, I only told you because we were doing the super secrets power hour, fuck," Dave said, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "The whole deal with the super secrets power hour is that it's secret."

"Get fucked," Karkat snorted. "There's nothing secret about the time you and that g -"

"Dude!"

"What? It's public knowledge."

"Nah, bro, it's not. Did you see me snapchatting about that? No, no you fucking didn't because I want at least some modicum of privacy in my life and I figured that kind of bullshit was probably the shit to keep on the down low," Dave snapped.

"Nice word usage," Rose said.

"Hey, thanks."

"Back to John, though," she went on. 

Karkat gave a snort of laughter when John groaned, then slumped sideways so he was lying sideways on the grass with his glasses skewed. 

He rolled his own eyes when Dave lifted his legs then spun around, so his head was resting on his stomach instead. 

"So this isn't gonna end well." Dave said quietly, attempting to whisper while Rose was preoccupied with laughing at John's pained expression. 

"How's it gonna happen then, genuis?" 

"Okay, so what's gonna happen is Rose is gonna hassle him until he says something stupid, then he's gonna get angry, then she's gonna say she's just doing what she's supposed to do and I'm gonna be stuck over here like an asshole when they ask me to pick a side," Dave explained. "You wanna go to Shake Shack until this blows over?"

"We're in California."

"Well fuck."

"Can't you just tell her to shut up because you already know the answer?" Karkat asked. Even he knew the answer; there was no way Rose didn't at least have some clue.

He'd never been as close to Rose as he had with other friends, but he knew exactly what she was like. She was harassing John only partly because she needed information - it was more than likely she was just drunk and trying to entertain herself. 

"No way, she's on a roll. It's a whole thing now, like who's gonna crack first? I mean, for sure John will but family tradition dies hard," Dave said. "Like I'm pretty sure Mom invented being a fucking troll."

Karkat watched as he turned his head. For as much of the afternoon as he could handle, Dave had gone without his glasses. But it was dark outside and they were all far enough across the yard from the house that all the light was filtered, less harsh, so his glasses were still inside where he knew they wouldn't get broken. It was the longest Karkat had ever known him to go without the crutch of his glasses; he'd never asked how much wearing them was a psychological need rather than purely physical. He'd adjusted to the weird void of pigment so long ago that trying to hold a conversation with a Dave who had visible, amber irises was disconcerting on multiple levels.

"You should really take those contacts out before you fucking fall asleep with them in, again, and fuck up your eyeballs in new and exciting ways," Karkat said.

"Thanks, Mom. Wanna watch?" 

"What, watch you fondle your eyeballs? Go fuck yourself," he said, watching as Dave unsteadily got to his feet.

"I'll be back. Text me if they get into a fist fight," Dave said. "And I need to pee, so I might not answer."

"That'd be a first," Karkat mumbled to himself, turning his attention back to the argument between the Lalonde-Egbert half of the family when Dave disappeared back into the house. "Wait, fill me in," he said to Kanaya, sitting up on the lawn. "What just happened?"

"John just said, and I quote, _stop being icky_."

"This is better than any John Hughes movie ever made," he muttered. 

He heard Kanaya stifle a laugh at his comment. He leaned forward and reached for another beer; when he sat back with his legs crossed, she patted him on the head. 

"Better than _Say Anything_?"

"Fuck no, you know that was just a figure of speech. How long until you step in on this shitshow?"

"I haven't decided yet," Kanaya said. "Although I am hoping John will reveal enough to satisfy her morbid curiosity." 

"So he hasn't fucked Serket, big deal. It's probably for the best anyway, I'll bet you a whole ten bucks she's got some weird spider fetish and it'd freak him the fuck out. Imagine having to look her in the fucked up eye while you're doing it, now that's a boner kill," he said. 

"No doubt it's got something to do with the eight legs," Kanaya said thoughtfully. "Vriska wouldn't be the first, in that case."

"First of all, I don't want to know," Karkat said, feigning more disgust than he felt. "Secondly, please tell me it's Rose and not you." 

"For the most part," Kanaya shrugged. "Now be quiet so I can listen and know when to put a stop to this unnecessary interrogation."

Interrogation felt like too loose a word to describe what Rose was orchestrating. John was looking more and more distressed each time she prodded him for information; eventually, she crawled unsteadily across the grass and sat back down, dragging John's head onto her lap. 

"Imagine, if you would, that you have free reign over anyone you admire. Anyone, John. This is your celebrity free pass and you can spend a delightful night with them without repercussion. Who would it be?" Rose asked. She was leaning forward over John to straighten his glasses, then moved on to picking lawn clippings out of his hair. "For example, if Kristen Stewart were to slide unabashedly into my DMs this very second, I would already be halfway to the nearest airport."

"Why's she talking about Kristen Stewart in 2015?"

Karkat watched as Dave - and a six pack of green apple Smirnoff Ice bottles - somersaulted into the empty patch of grass beside him. 

"Celebrity free pass."

"Easy, Ben Stiller," Dave said without missing a beat as he cracked open one of the bottles. 

"I know."

"Hey, just because your list is like twelve pages long and reads like the cast of the next shitty Christmas-release rom-com. What'd I miss?"

"Not much. Give me one of those," Karkat said. He reached over and snatched the bottle from Dave, mid-swig, and drank half of the sickly sweet liquid before handing it back. 

"Dave, you're interrupting our session," Rose said sharply. She didn't look up from trying to braid tiny sections of John's bangs. "Are you following?"

"Kind of, but you're pretty drunk and I don't even know what the point is anymore," John said. He tried to sit up, but Rose pushed him back down by the shoulder. 

"The point is that you are very much entirely disinterested in ever having sex and that's not about to change so you might as well just tell that to your girlfriend." 

"Rose!"

"Am I wrong, dear middle brother?"

"I - what, why are we even talking about me?"

"Because you are the only one in denial about it at this stage and denial is no good for anyone. Particularly for Vriska in this case, I suppose," Rose said.

"Why should I?"

"Because you're the one who never wants to stick your dick in anything, John. It's the polite thing to do when she's spent however long trying to get you to do exactly that," she said. She leant down and kissed John's forehead, then finally let him sit up. "Dave, a little help please?"

"Hold this," Dave said. He handed his drink back again and Karkat took it, then watched as he got to his feet then helped Rose, unsteadily, to hers. As they stumbled across towards the house together, John rolled over onto his stomach and groaned loudly. 

"Were you guys listening to that?" 

"Every word," he grunted in response. 

"It was only news to you, John. Would you like another drink?" Kanaya offered, gesturing to the assortment of bottles laid out on the grass in front of them. 

Karkat snorted as John stretched out, pathetically, for one of the bottles just out of reach.

+++

Rose hadn't entirely known what to expect from the house in California. Dave's reports were vague, and although she had seen photos and video footage, there was something entirely different about being in a place she thought she knew. 

She let her head roll forwards when her brother's hand nudged her so he could put a cushion down for her to lie on. 

"Thank you," she mumbled. 

She'd done it again, gone behind Kanaya's back and lied about how much she'd been drinking, about how many additional shots she'd done on her supposed bathroom trip. But Dave knew, he always knew. She'd always thought she gave off a sign, but there was something much simpler to it than that. 

He was too much like their mother. 

"Want me to stay?" Dave asked. 

His eyes were glazed over but still focused; he wasn't anywhere near as far gone as she'd thought he was earlier. 

"Go have fun," she said, reaching for his hand. She twisted her fingers in amongst his and dragged his hand closer to lightly kiss his knuckles. "You know, knights weren't always about saving damsels in distress. From what I've read, they really just liked to get totally fucked up at parties."

"It's like you read my fucking mind. You know where to find me," Dave said. 

She let her hand slip out of his as he stood up and left the living room, narrowly avoiding a doorway collision with Dirk. 

Rose stared, trying to remember the last time she'd seen her brother and uncle standing side by side. She couldn't recall the moment, but she knew Dave had grown noticeably since then. He stood almost exactly the same height as his father but half the width; he'd never started to bulk out the way their parents had expected him to do by about sixteen.

She closed her eyes, finding it hard to concentrate on their conversation as the half dozen mouthfuls of gin she'd stolen earlier began to hit her bloodstream. They were joking around, laughing, their familiar voices blending in with the background noise from the TV, broadcasting a show she couldn't place. 

It was hard to tell if she'd drifted off, because the next thing she knew Dirk's hand was on her cheek, wiping away what had to be a smudged line of lipstick.

"Hey, little lady," he said quietly. "Bit off more than you can chew, huh?"

"Me? Never," she said, slowly opening her eyes.

Her uncle was sitting on the floor, his side pressed up against the couch and his left arm resting on her as he ran his fingers comfortingly through her hair. 

"It's in your blood," he said.

"So is the better part of the liquor aisle."

"Still sharp as a tack," he laughed. "You wanna watch a movie?"

"Maybe," she said, her eyes fluttering closed again. "I'm gonna miss you."

"You can visit me whenever you want, Rosie. Fly out of Newark if you have to, Dave likes JFK better but Newark works."

"California's a long way from London," she mumbled.

"Yeah, but you live in New Jersey, remember?"

"Only until three days after Christmas."

"Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, what are you talking about? Hey, look at me sweetheart," Dirk said. Rose could feel him wiping away the tears as they fell. She hadn't even realised she was crying.

She'd let the cat out and torn the bag to shreds.

"I don't think I can win the game by following the rules anymore," she said. "The game is over, it stopped being just a game a long time ago and I think I always knew that."

"What did?"

"So I'm breaking the game. I'm going to fuck it up, turn expectations on their heads, and try something new. Fuck it, right?"

"Rosie, I know you think this makes sense but you're doing a Dave and talking shit."

"I haven't even _told_ Dave, Bro. I don't know how. If I can't tell Dave, how do I tell Mom?"

"We'll talk tomorrow, okay? When you're not drunk and I'm not drunk, we'll talk then," Dirk said quietly. He was still wiping away her tears, just like he had for years when she was young. "Because I'm so drunk, Rosie. So fucking drunk."

She smiled weakly, swatting his hand away to peel off her fake lashes before they could stick her lids together in a mess of smudged mascara. 

"Are you happy?" Rose asked quietly, a few moments later. "With the way your life has turned out, I mean?"

"Believe it or not, I'm so fucking happy right now, sweetheart. Go to sleep, I'll wake you up when it's time to go home."

+++

"What did I even do?!" John exclaimed as Dave tackled him over the edge of his bed and onto the floor. He hadn't been expecting it because he thought Dave was still in the bathroom. "Did you leave the faucet on just for this? That's not fai - oomph!" 

"You didn't do anything, John, I'm a fucking ninja. And yeah, I left the fucking faucet on because I'm a motherfucking ninja!"

"Drunk butthole!"

"Ninja!" Dave shouted, struggling to regain his balance.

"Dave!" 

"Actually let's go with Mr. Ninja, it sounds cooler." 

"Dammit!" John exclaimed as he tried to worm him way out from Dave's grip. "Why is this a thing we're doing?"

"Because I'm a ninja, John, why aren't you getting this through your head?" 

"Because you're the idiot, not me!" 

Suddenly, John's limbs all hit the floor between the two beds as Dave let go and jumped up onto his own mattress. He was way out of practice when it came to roughhousing for no reason. He lay on the carpet, trying to act like it was no big deal he'd just been thrown to the floor unexpectedly. 

"Dave! Get out here!"

John pushed himself up onto his elbows when he heard Karkat yelling; unfortunately, Dave chose that exact moment to lunge forward, and the next thing John knew he was tangled up in the comforter from Dave's bed. 

"Busy, dude!"

"Dave!" 

"Dude, I said I'm busy!" Dave shot back. 

John tried to kick him in the shin but could hardly move - Dave had already somehow managed to wrap the comforter around him in a convoluted pattern. He was stuck, at least until Dave stood up and unpinned the edges of the heavy blanket from under his knees. 

"Get the fuck out here!" Karkat shouted again. 

"Why?"

"Dave!" 

"Fuck, I'm coming!" Dave yelled back. "This doesn't mean you win, Egbert," he added, pushing himself up to his feet. "I'll be back when you least expect it." 

"You're so lame," John said, shaking his head free from under the comforter. "Tell Terezi I said hi!" 

The door shut itself behind Dave as he stumbled out into the hallway of the hotel, giving John the chance he needed to escape. He straightened out his glasses and threw the comforter back onto the other bed. While he was alone he quickly changed into his pyjamas and went to brush his teeth, making the most of the fact that the bathroom faucet was still running. 

He couldn't hear anything that was going on outside. 

John flopped down on his stomach and picked up his phone. It was almost five o'clock in the morning, on Friday, and everything he'd had to drink earlier in the night had worn off and left him exhausted. 

Admittedly, he hadn't even had that much to drink. He was probably just tired because it was five o'clock in the morning. 

He swiped through his messages and thought about replying to some, but it was five o'clock. No one was going to be awake. He opened _Clash of Clans_ instead and rolled over onto his back; when his hand slipped and his phone crashed into his glasses, John lay perfectly still until he was sure neither Dave or Karkat had heard the clatter. 

Nothing. 

John had no idea how long had passed by the time he heard the door creak open. He powered up the screen to his phone to check the time - five fifty-eight - and groaned. He'd been asleep for sure, he could feel a gross patch of warm drool under his cheek. 

"John? Hey, you up?"

"G'mwhey," he muttered. 

"It's kind of important, dude," Dave said. 

"Inthmnnnngg."

"John, fuck. Something happened." 

"Wha?"

"For fucks' sake, John, sit the fuck up," Dave snapped. "We're trying to do the decent fucking thing here and you're making it way fucking harder than it really fucking should be."

"Hey, tone it down on the fucks," Karkat said quietly. 

That finally got John's attention; he'd never heard Karkat sound like that. He pushed himself up, groggily, and straightened out his glasses. Dave and Karkat were sitting on the edge of the bed opposite him, both looking more worn out than he'd ever seen anyone look before. Dave had his arms folded across his chest, the fingers of his left hand tapping out an impatient beat as he stared at the black TV screen. Karkat had his feet up on the edge of John's mattress, his knees bent and his arms folded around them with his phone clutched tightly in his fist. 

"So," Karkat started, then paused to clear his throat. "It had already happened when I called Terezi. They were fighting. Again, or, like always, whatever. She couldn't tell us everything because she's a fucking mess, that's why it took so long." 

"What are you talking about, dude?" John asked. 

Even though Karkat was trying to explain, he was more confused than ever. 

"Vriska's in the ICU," Dave interrupted, finally tearing his gaze away from the blank TV to look at John. "She was driving, they were fighting. Rezi heard it all so she's pretty fucked up. We called around to find out as much as we could."

"What do you mean?" John asked. "ICU?"

"She was on the phone, ran a red. The impact was dead-on with her door. They said she's got all the luck in the world," Karkat said.

"How is she lucky if she's in the ICU?!" 

"It should have killed her. She was awake when they found her, they had to put her into a coma before her body realised and killed her out of shock," Dave explained. John noticed that he was having more trouble than usual making eye contact. 

"Realised? Realised what?"

Neither of the others spoke up, not immediately. 

"They're in the process of flying someone in from out East to try and reconstruct her left arm. Apparently he's one of the best and if he can't do it, she'll lose it completely." 

John just stared at his friends, struggling to take in everything they'd told him in the past few minutes. It sounded serious because it was just that.

Vriska had almost died. 

She still could. 

She was most likely going to lose her arm. 

"John?" Dave asked, as he lunged across his bed to pick up his phone. "John, buddy, say something, would you?"

"She's gonna be late for work," he said, Googling the phone number for the Starbucks location Vriska worked at. "I should tell them that, right?"

"Yeah, dude, that sounds good. You need anything?" 

"Uh," John looked up from up from his phone again to see them both still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him closely. "I just need to call her work. And then I might go and wake up my dad and tell him we need to go home, like, right now."

**End Act 6.1**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 you all so much! i hope you've enjoyed this act and i can't wait for you all to come along next time. what's next? plenty. plenty is what's next.

**Author's Note:**

> <3 you're awesome.
> 
> come hang out at twoperfectlittlefreaks.tumblr.com!


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